Magnetic stimulation may improve stroke recovery
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The results of a small
preliminary trial suggest that a type of magnetic stimulation
of the brain — repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation
(rTMS) — may produce short-term improvements after stroke.
With rTMS, the head is placed close to intermittent
magnetic fields. No anesthesia is required and the procedure is
performed on an outpatient basis. Patients may complain of
headaches during rTMS, depending on the strength of the field
used.
Previous trials of rTMS used to treat depression and
movement disorders have yielded mixed results, the study
investigators note.
In their current study, reported in the medical journal
Neurology, Dr. Eman M. Khedr, from Assiut University Hospital
in Egypt, and colleagues recruited 52 patients within 5 to 10
days of stroke onset. In addition to standard physical and
medical therapies, patients were randomly assigned to 10 daily
sessions of rTMS or a fake “sham” treatment.
Stimulation was applied intermittently for 10 minutes over
the area of the brain in which the stroke occurred.
When evaluated 10 days after the last rTMS session, 35
percent of those in the rTMS group and 8 percent in the sham
group had a good-to-excellent functional outcome. On the same
day, 50 percent of the treatment patients and 19 percent of the
sham patients exhibited only mild disability.
However, the six patients in the rTMS group and five in the
sham group who had massive strokes had no improvement
associated with treatment.
Conclusions that can be drawn from this study are limited
because of the small number of subjects and short duration of
follow-up, Dr. Paolo Maria Rossini, at University Campus
Biomedico in Rome, and Dr. Claiborne S. Johnston, from the
University of California San Francisco, comment in an
accompanying editorial.
While lauding this “new avenue of research,” the
editorialists suggest that more studies should be conducted
with animals before proceeding to human trials.
SOURCE: Neurology, August 9, 2005.