Histological analysis of fetal dopamine cell suspension grafts in two patients with Parkinson's disease gives promising results

In this issue of Brain (pages 1498–1510), Mendez and collaborators report the postmortem analysis of brains from two patients with Parkinson's disease who had received grafts of brain tissue dissected from the developing ventral mesencephalic region, obtained from 6- to 9-week-old aborted fetuses, which is known to contain the appropriate type of dopamine neurones lost in these patients as a result of their disease. The most important aspect of this report is the fact that this is the first time we have been able to evaluate the outcome of so-called cell suspension grafts, a more refined cell preparation technique than has been used in the previously reported autopsy cases. Since 1987, when the first clinical neural transplantation trials were initiated, some 350 Parkinson's disease patients have received intrastriatal grafts of human fetal mesencephalic tissue (Lindvall and Bjorklund, 2004; Winkler et al ., 2005). However, there has so far been no attempt to standardize the way in which the transplantation is carried out at different centres. Almost all aspects of tissue handling and storage, and of graft preparation, have differed from one centre to another (Winkler et al ., 2005). In several open-label trials, such as those performed in Lund, Paris and Halifax, grafts prepared as cell suspensions have been used, whereas other centres …