Transcutaneous auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation (ta-VNS) for Treatment of Drug-resistant Epilepsy: A Randomized, Double-Blind Clinical Trial
Abstract number :
2.438
Submission category :
4. Clinical Epilepsy / 4C. Clinical Treatments
Year :
2022
Submission ID :
2232871
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/4/2022 12:00:00 PM
Published date :
Nov 22, 2022, 05:28 AM
Authors :
huajun yang, MD, PhD – Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University; Jingjing Fan, MD, PhD – Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University; Yajun Lian, MD, PhD – The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University; Wei Shan, MD, PhD – Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University; Weixiong Shi, MD, PhD – Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University; Yijun Song, MD, PhD – Tianjin Medical University General Hospital; Qun Wang, MD, PhD – Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University; Xiaoshan Wang, MD, PhD – Nanjing Medical University affiliated Brain Hospital
This is a Late Breaking abstract
Rationale: This study explored the efficacy and safety of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (ta-VNS) in patients with epilepsy.
Methods: A total of 150 patients were randomly divided into active stimulation group and sham boot control group. At baseline and 4, 12, and 20 weeks of stimulation, demographic information, seizure frequency, adverse events were recorded; at 20 weeks, the patients underwent assessment of quality of life, Hamilton Anxiety and Depression scale, MINI suicide scale and MoCA scale. Seizure frequency was determined according to the patient's seizure diary. Seizure frequency reduction > 50% was considered as effective. During our study, the antiepileptic drugs were maintained at a constant level in all subjects.
Results: At 20 weeks, the responder rate was significantly higher in active group than in control group. The relative reduction of seizure frequency in the active group was significantly higher than that in the control group at 20 weeks. Additionally, no significant differences were shown in QOL, HAMA, HAMD, MINI and MoCA score at 20 weeks. The main adverse events were pain, sleep disturbance, flu-like symptoms and local skin discomfort. No severe adverse events were reported in active and control group. There were no significant differences in adverse events and severe adverse events between the two groups.
Conclusions: The present study showed that ta-VNS is an effective and safe therapy for epilepsy. Furthermore, the benefit in QOL and neuropsychological state of ta-VNS need further validation in the future study although no significant improvement was shown in this study.
Funding: This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China 2017YFC1307500, Beijing Postdoctoral Research Foundation (ZZ2019-09 & ZZ2020-06), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2019M660719) and Beijing Nova Program (Z211100002121047).
Clinical Epilepsy