Sept. 24 (UPI) — Researchers at University College London reported success in treating Huntington’s disease with gene therapy, which is the world’s first to prove successful.<\/p>\n
The gene therapy slowed the disease’s progress by 75% in patients over three years during the U.K. trial, according to The Guardian<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We now have a treatment for one of the world’s more terrible diseases,” said Sarah Tabrizi, the director of the Huntington’s Disease Center at University College London.<\/p>\n “This is absolutely huge,” Tabrizi added. “I’m really overjoyed.”<\/p>\n The treatment slows mental decline to such an extent that what normally would occur over a year when untreated would take up to four years to occur, Tabrizi told the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We never in our wildest dreams would have expected a 75% slowing of clinical progression,” Tabrizi said.<\/p>\n She said slowing the effects of Huntington’s disease gives patients a “good quality of life” for many more decades.<\/p>\n The gene therapy treatment requires brain surgery that lasts for between 12 and 18 hours.<\/p>\n The number of patients who participated in the clinical trial was not announced, but one who had been retired for medical reasons has resumed working, according to the BBC.<\/p>\n Other trial participants are able to walk instead of using wheelchairs, which they otherwise would have needed.<\/p>\n Huntington’s disease is a genetic defect that passes from generation to generation within families and leads to dementia, paralysis and death, according to the Huntington’s Disease Society of America.<\/p>\n