Doctors at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital said yesterday that one of their former patients is the first person ever to be cured of Parkinson's disease and give birth to a healthy baby.

A surgical treatment first used in 1994 has proven successful in curing some elderly patients of the debilitating disease in the past, but this is the first time a young woman has been cured and then given birth, according to Dr Sun Bomin.

Sun first announced the success at an international conference for neosurgery in May, and he will publish his research in the next issue of Stereotatic and Functional Neosurgery, a US-based medical journal.

The patient, 28, who doctors declined to identify, underwent the surgery in May 2002. Two months later she was healthy enough to marry, and gave birth to a son in June this year.

Sun said he held off announcing the success until he had time to do follow-up testing on both mother and son.

A hormone test has con-firmed that the son didn't inherit the ailment, doctors said.

"Currently, she is no dif-ferent from normal people and can handle her work and take care of her son without any problems," said Sun.

The surgery involved a common technique called deep-brain stimulation, which was developed in 1994 and has improved over the years.

Doctors implanted an electrode into the woman's brain and a stimulator into her chest to emit high-frequency radio waves to stimulate the central nervous system.

The symptoms improved soon after the surgery and vanished two months later, according to doctors.

The woman reportedly was diagnosed with Parkinson's four years ago.

"Her hands and feet trembled terribly all the time. Any basic deeds in daily life such as taking a cup to drink water were impossible for her," said Sun.

Parkinson's disease is usually found in older people, with 1 percent of those over the age of 55 affected by the ailment. It only hits three of every 10,000 people in the general population.

"The disease is affecting people in their 40s. But this patient is a special case that she suffered from the disease only in her 20s," Sun added.

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