St Jude Medical has presented the study reults of its Libra deep brain stimulation (DBS) system to treat severe depression.
Libra DBS system delivers mild pulses of current from a device implanted near the collarbone to small electrical leads placed in the subcallosal cingulate (SCC) area of the brain, a structure within Brodmann Area 25.
The multi-center pilot, which enrolled 21 patients, was designed to assess the efficacy of the Libra DBS system.
The results showed improvement in depression symptoms and increased overall quality of life in patients who typically don’t respond to treatment.
Patients demonstrated using a clinical global impression of severity (CGI-S) rating scale also showed that after 12 months of DBS, over 80% of the patients experienced improvement and none of the patients were rated as severely or extremely ill.
St Jude Medical Neuromodulation Division president Rohan Hoare said these findings are significant as they confirm the basis on which they established the Broaden pivotal study.