Affecting around 41,000 people in the US, and with 200,000 more genetically predisposed to developing it, Huntington’s Disease is a devastating condition that causes irreversible brain decline and premature death.

With symptoms often becoming present in a person’s 30s or 40s, the condition then causes rapid decline due to the progressive death of brain cells, with patients usually dying within the next twenty years.

And one of the cruellest factors in the condition is the knowledge that if a parent develops Huntington’s, their children have a 50% change of developing it too, not long after watching the decline and subsequent death of their parents.

And until now, there was no cure and little hope for sufferers and their families.

However, as the BBC report, a new breakthrough procedure has successfully treated Huntington’s for the first time, with this medical innovation the answer to the prayers of hundreds of thousands.

The new treatment, which has been clinically tested on 29 Huntington’s patients, involves a long surgical procedure on the brain.

During the surgery – a pioneering type of gene therapy which targets the huntingtin gene in the DNA – a safe virus is infused into the brain.

This virus delivers tiny DNA into brain cells, which then learn to replicate the gene-silencing DNA sequence, meaning that levels of huntingtin in the brain will be reduced, and its brain cell killing properties disabled.

What’s more, the trial was an unprecedented success, with 75% of patients seeing a slowing of the disease, and some patients having remarkable recoveries.

This included a medically retired patient who was able to return to work, and wheelchair users who were able to walk again.

Even the researchers were astounded by the success of the treatment, with Professor Sarah Tabrizi explaining delight to the BBC at the potentially life-changing impact on patients:

“We never in our wildest dreams would have expected a 75% slowing of clinical progression.”

Though the gene therapy is likely to be expensive, it is undoubtedly promising and the answer to the prayers of Huntington’s suffers and their families.

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