NEUROSURGEONS are asking journalism's classic "5 Ws and an H" as they attempt to refine techniques and indications for brain grafts in patients with Parkinson's disease.
"They are now in the process of determining who, what, when, where, and how as they consider the best candidates and techniques for the procedure," Roy A. E. Bakay, MD, told the recent annual meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in Washington, DC. Bakay, director of the General Registry of Adrenal and Fetal Transplantation (GRAFT), was explaining the role of his database in this process. Probably most of those involved would consider that the other "W"—why—now has been answered: to try to improve the prognosis of parkinsonism.
Bakay, who is affiliated with the department of neurosurgery, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Ga, said that the neurosurgeon's association had established the registry in 1987 as a central clearinghouse for the