Surgery for disorders promising but risky

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- Brain surgery to treat severe obsessive-compulsive disorders shows promise but remains highly experimental, U.S. neurosurgeons said.

"We have this idea -- it's almost a fetish -- that progress is its own justification, that if something is promising, then how can we not rush to relieve suffering?" said Paul Root Wolpe, a medical ethicist at Emory University.

A few clinics worldwide, including Harvard, the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Toronto, treat severe cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD, with brain surgery involving high-resolution imaging technology, The New York Times reported Friday.

One procedure, called cingulotomy, involves threading wires through the skull into the anterior cingulate, where the wire destroy bits of tissue connected to emotional centers of the brain. In many cases, the surgery has eased severe cases of OCD while in others the surgery has had no effect, neurosurgeons told The Times.

Demand for the surgery is great, but given the history of failed techniques, doctors need to be cautious, said Dr. Darin Dougherty, director of the division of neurotherapeutics at Massachusetts General Hospital.

"If this effort somehow goes wrong, it'll shut down this approach for another 100 years," Dougherty said.