Evaluating vagus nerve stimulation treatment with heart rate monitoring in pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy

Pediatric
Written By Rodrigo Silva

Santhumayor B, Karkare S, Kothare S, Rodgers S.

Epileptic Disord. 2022 Oct 1;24(5):1-12.
doi: 10.1684/epd.2022.1467. 

The newest vagus nerve stimulation (#VNS) devices with “auto-stimulation” feature, AspireSR™ Model 106 and SenTiva™ Model 1000 (VNS Therapy™, LivaNova™), enable automatic stimulation of vagus nerve triggered by an ictal tachycardia of epilepsy patients. This study by Santhumayor et al. (Mar. 2022) followed 55 pediatric and young patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (#DRE) who underwent VNS Therapy at a single level four epilepsy center, and found out the patients with auto-stimulation VNS had a higher mean #seizure reduction compared to the patients with traditional VNS at 12 months post-VNS treatment (56.0% vs 41.6%). 

The study provided clinial safety and effectiveness evidence for the auto-stimulation VNS devices in young patients. Longer follow-up studies are needed to examine the increasing effects of  the auto-stimulation VNS in the future.

Rodrigo Silva
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Efficacy and potential predictors of vagus nerve stimulation therapy in refractory postencephalitic epilepsy
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Long-term results of vagus nerve stimulation in children with Dravet syndrome: Time-dependent, delayed antiepileptic effect