Fetal striatal grafting slows motor and cognitive decline of Huntington's disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a devastating, neurodegenerative condition for which caudate-putaminal transplantation of fetal striatal tissue has been proposed with uncertain results. We carried out a follow-up study on 10 HD transplanted patients and 16 HD not-transplanted patients. All patients were evaluated with the Unified Huntington’s Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) whose change in motor, cognitive, behavioral and functional capacity total scores were considered as outcome measures. Grafted patients also received morphological and molecular neuroimaging. Grafted patients experienced a milder clinical course with less pronounced motor/cognitive decline and associated brain metabolism improvement.