Which facility for focused ultrasound treatment of essential tremor has the most experience?
Executive summary
The available reporting does not produce a definitive, audited count of focused‑ultrasound procedures to name a single “most experienced” facility, but several centers stake clear claims: UCLA points to more than a decade of focused‑ultrasound practice and positions itself as the most experienced team in Southern California [1], while Weill Cornell highlights Dr. Michael Kaplitt’s pioneering role and world‑leading experience with numerous peer‑reviewed publications [2]; other major academic centers such as NewYork‑Presbyterian, Rush, Swedish, OHSU and Johns Hopkins similarly advertise long experience and regional leadership [3] [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. Why “most experience” is not a simple head‑count
Claims of “most experience” hinge on different metrics—years offering MRgFUS, number of procedures, pioneering firsts, or regional primacy—but the public pages reviewed give promotional statements rather than standardized procedure tallies, so no single source in this set delivers an independently verified procedure count to settle the question absolutely [1] [2] [4] [5].
2. UCLA: a decade‑plus of focused‑ultrasound practice
UCLA explicitly states its neurosurgery team has “over 10 years of experience with focused ultrasound,” and promotes itself as the most experienced team in Southern California while citing long‑term follow‑up results and sustained tremor improvement to support that claim [1].
3. Weill Cornell / Dr. Michael Kaplitt: pioneer and publisher
Weill Cornell foregrounds Michael Kaplitt as a pioneer who “has published many peer‑reviewed articles” and who “is one of the most experienced neurosurgeons in the world” in focused ultrasound for essential tremor—an argument based on academic leadership and first‑in‑region procedures rather than an explicit overall procedure volume [2].
4. Regional leaders with high procedural visibility
Other academic centers make strong regional claims: NewYork‑Presbyterian advertises surgeons who perform the procedure “several times a week” and markets the treatment as the most advanced precision option in its system [3]; Rush promotes Rush Oak Brook as “one of the most experienced teams nationwide” and the only MRgFUS site in several Midwestern states [4]; Swedish and OHSU each assert first‑in‑region status and being the most experienced within their Pacific Northwest or Oregon markets respectively [5] [6].
5. Small‑number disclosures and clinician counts matter
Some reporting provides clinician‑level numbers: Corewell Health discloses one surgeon performed the procedure “over 60 times” after training at OHSU, an explicit numeric hint at experience though limited in scope [8]. Johns Hopkins, UCSF, UF Health, Wake Forest and others emphasize program availability and outcomes but stop short of public, cumulative procedure figures on the pages reviewed [7] [9] [10] [11].
6. Device maker lists and incentives can skew visibility
Insightec, the device manufacturer, maintains public lists of treatment centers and patient outreach materials and sometimes supports marketing and reimbursement assistance—useful for locating programs but not a neutral auditor of volume claims; manufacturer‑linked lists can amplify certain centers’ profiles without verifying comparative caseloads [12].
7. Conclusion — reasonable judgment from available evidence
Given the absence of standardized, independently audited procedure counts in the sources provided, the safest, evidence‑based conclusion is that multiple centers legitimately claim long experience: UCLA (10+ years) and Weill Cornell (Kaplitt’s pioneering, published leadership) stand out in this set as the most prominently experienced by different measures—UCLA by program longevity and Weill Cornell by clinician pioneer status—while NewYork‑Presbyterian, Rush, Swedish and OHSU also present strong regional leadership claims [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. If a single “most experienced” label is required, the reporting here cannot confirm it conclusively; answering that would require independent data on cumulative procedure volumes, dates of program starts, and published outcome series across centers, information not present in these excerpts.