Double Blinded Randomized Trial of Subcutaneous Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation as Adjuvant Treatment for Major Unipolar Depressive Disorder.

Background: More than 30% of major depressive disorder patients fail to respond to adequate trials of medications and psychotherapy. While modern neuromodulation approaches (ie, vagal nerve stimulation, deep brain stimulation) are yet to prove their efficacy for such cases in large randomized controlled trials, trigeminal nerve stimulation (TNS) has emerged as an alternative with promising effects on mood disorders.

Objective: To assess efficacy, safety, tolerability, and placebo effect duration of continuous subcutaneous TNS (sTNS) in treatment-resistant depression (TRD).

An Open-Label Clinical Trial of Hypothalamic Deep Brain Stimulation for Human Morbid Obesity: BLESS Study Protocol.

Background: Human morbid obesity is increasing worldwide in an alarming way. The hypothalamus is known to mediate its mechanisms. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) may be an alternative to treat patients refractory to standard medical and surgical therapies.

Drug-eluting stents in the elderly: long-term (> one year) clinical outcomes of octogenarians in the DESIRE (Drug-Eluting Stents In the REal world) registry.

Background: Despite the increasing number of elderly people, this high-complexity subset of patients is often excluded from randomized trials of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) and, therefore, limited data are available about their outcomes after drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation. We sought to compare the very long-term (> 1 year) clinical follow up of octogenarians treated with DES compared to younger individuals.

Methods: The DESIRE registry is a prospective, nonrandomized, single-center registry with consecutive patients treated solely with DES between May 2002 and May 2007.