NeuroStar TMS Therapy reports successful study for treatment of depression.-Neuronetics Inc.

Neuronetics, Inc. announced the publication of a recent study in Brain Stimulation - "Can Medication Free, Treatment-Resistant, Depressed Patients Who Initially Respond to TMS Be Maintained Off Medications? A Prospective, 12-Month Multisite Randomized Pilot Study.". Previous studies have demonstrated that over half of these patients experienced improvement in their symptoms and over one third experience complete remission from their depression when treated with NeuroStar TMS Therapy. A key question in the medical community is whether or not the patients who respond to NeuroStar TMS Therapy need to remain on antidepressant medications post-treatment in order to maintain their response. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of NeuroStar TMS Therapy as the sole maintenance therapy to prevent relapse of depression for patients who initially responded to NeuroStar TMS Therapy.

The study examined efficacy over one year of once-monthly scheduled maintenance treatment with NeuroStar TMS Therapy, as compared to monthly observation, for the prevention of symptomatic worsening in medication-free patients who had shown a clinical response to acute treatment. The study demonstrated that treatment-resistant depressed patients treated with NeuroStar TMS Therapy may maintain their clinical benefit with occasional reintroduction only, and do not require antidepressant medication. A secondary finding of the study also revealed a high remission rate of 61.2% among patients from the acute treatment phase, prior to randomization.

In this study, about one-third of patients continued to receive benefit from NeuroStar TMS Therapy after acute treatment without the need for treatment with antidepressant medication during the 12-month duration of the study. These results suggest that long term management for patients after initial treatment may require a sequenced approach, for example, observation at first, moving to maintenance NeuroStar TMS Therapy as a second stage, and perhaps combination with pharmaceuticals as a last step. The findings of this study are consistent with other studies of long term outcome data for NeuroStar TMS Therapy that suggest a durable benefit of acute remission in long term follow up.

Comment: The Neurostar TMS Therapy received FDA approval in 2008 and a CE Mark in 2012.