• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 03 / 03 / 2011

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By Radio Angulo / Wednesday, 02 March 2011 12:13. The investigations carried out in Holguin about the inherited ataxia and mainly the Autosomal dominant spinocerebellar (SCA2) were regarded as excellent by Spanish doctor Jose Angel Obeso Inchausti, neurology professor in the Medicine Faculty of the University of Navarra.

The also member of the Neurology Department of the Clinical University of Navarra, in Pamplona, said that these studies are a model contribution on how to deal with this neurodegenerative disease highly recurrent in Holguin.

“The merit is because of the unique characteristics of the Cuban health system and the high scientific level of its professionals. In other countries it would be difficult to achieve what has already being discovered about the disease,” he pointed.

Obeso, who has contributed in the formation of numerous specialist in the area of movement disorders, is currently participating, along with a group of colleagues from different Spanish universities and several Cuban health institutions in the First International Sympossium on Spinocerebellar Ataxias and Parkinson Disease, Pathogenesis and therapeutic possibilities, that will be held in Holguin from March 1 to March 3.

In the opening ceremony of the event the work sessions opened with the conferences: Introduction to the movement disorders. Therapeutic chalenges, by J. A. Obeso and Historical Development and perspectives of the Ataxias Investigations inCuba, byt PhD Luis Velazquez Perez, who informed that there are over 2.330 people in Cuba with the SCA2 mutation among the ill and descendants.

1,697 of them are from the province of Holguin. The prevalence rates of sick people in this province is of 700 for every 100 thousand citizens, a number proving that SCA2 Ataxia presents the highest prevalence worldwide, not only compared to other SCA, but also compared to other neurological degenerations.

In the afternoon, the participants visited the Center for the Research and Rehabilitation of Inherited Ataxias in Holguin (CIRAH for its Spanish acronyms), created in 2000 to respond to this health problem through investigations, search for markers of the disease and other actions.

Source: www.radioangulo.cu/en/index.php/news/health/9364-