A study led by Los Angeles-based UCLA Health found that an accelerated transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol delivered over five consecutive days produced outcomes comparable to the standard six-week course for patients with treatment-resistant depression.
The study was published June 15 in the Journal of Affective Disorders. Researchers compared 175 patients with treatment-resistance depression. One group of 135 participants received one session per day, five days per week, for six weeks. A second group of 40 participants received five sessions per day for five consecutive days.
“For patients with treatment-resistant depression, getting to the clinic every weekday for at least six weeks can be a real obstacle,” Michael Apostol, the study’s lead author, said in a Feb. 23news release from the health system. “What this study suggests is that we may be able to offer those same patients a path to meaningful relief in less than one week by condensing 25 TMS treatments over just five days.”
Here are four things to know:
- TMS has been shown in large studies to significantly reduce symptoms in 60% to 70% of patients, with 25% to 35% achieving remission, the release said.
- Both study groups showed meaningful reductions in depression symptoms, with no statistically significant difference in outcomes between the approaches.
- Among patients in the accelerated group who showed little improvement immediately after completing treatment, follow-up two to four weeks later showed a 36% reduction in depression scores on average. Researchers said the funding suggests patients who do not respond at the end of five days may still benefit in the weeks that follow.
- The conventional six-week approach continued to outperform the accelerated protocol on some longer-term measures. Researchers noted the study was not a formal clinical trial with random assignment and said larger, controlled trials are needed to confirm the findings.
