Vagus nerve stimulation for treatment-resistant mood disorders: a long-term naturalistic study

Limited therapeutic options are available for patients with treatment-refractory major depression who do not respond to routinely available therapies. Vagus nerve stimulation showed adjunctive antidepressant effect in chronic treatment resistant depression, even though available studies rarely exceed 2-year follow up. We report a naturalistic 5-year follow up of five patients who received VNS implant for resistant depression (3 patients with major depressive disorder and 2 with bipolar disorder).

Response was defined as a reduction of the 17-item HDRS total score ≥50% with respect to baseline, remission as a score ≤7.

Response and remission rates were both 40% (2/5) after 1 year, and 60% (3/5) at 5 years. Two patients withdrew from the study because of side effects or inefficacy of stimulation.

Our case series showed that long-term VNS may be effective in reducing severity of depression in a small but significant minority of patients, although two patients had stimulation terminated because of adverse effects and/or refusal to continue the study.