New Treatment For Depression ?

Q: A surgical implant that stimulates the brain should get government approval to treat chronic depression, a panel of federal experts said Tuesday -- marking the first time an implanted device has been recommended for the treatment of a psychiatric disorder.

A:The decision by an expert advisory panel of the Food and Drug Administration came after a day of clashing scientific opinions about whether the data submitted by the manufacturer were adequate for approval. Proponents of the device prevailed, citing the desperate need of patients with chronic depression who do not respond to existing treatments. "We lost four of these individuals in the last 2-1/2 hours," said

A: John Rush, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, basing that figure on the high suicide rate among patients with resistant

depression. The device has been used in the United States since 1997 to control epileptic seizures. The manufacturer, Cyberonics Inc. of Houston, hopes to expand its market. About 15 percent to 25 percent of the 19 million Americans with depression may not respond to available treatments who was paid to conduct some of the clinical trials, said of the 30,000 suicides a year in America, about 80 percent of them are due to depression. Half of those are among patients with treatment-resistant depression who had tried multiple therapies. If nothing else worked sure, just as some undergo ECT for relieving refractory depression. Chronic depression is just horrible.