Confirmatory Efficacy and Safety Trial of Magnetic Seizure Therapy for Depression (CREST – MST): Study Protocol for a Randomized Non-Inferiority Trial of Magnetic Seizure Therapy versus Electroconvulsive Therapy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract BackgroundElectroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is well-established and effective for treatment resistant depression (TRD), but in Canada and the United States, less than 1% of patients with TRD receive ECT mainly due to its cognitive adverse effects (i.e., amnesia). Thus, new treatment alternatives for TRD are urgently needed. One such treatment is Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST). ECT involves applying a train of high frequency electrical stimuli to induce a seizure, whereas MST involves applying a train of high frequency magnetic stimuli to induce a seizure. MethodsIn this manuscript, we introduce our international, two-site, double-blinded, randomized, non-inferiority clinical trial to develop MST as an effective and safe treatment for TRD. This trial will compare the efficacy of MST to right unilateral ultra-brief pulse width electroconvulsive therapy (RUL-UB-ECT) with a combined primary endpoint of remission of depression and superior cognitive adverse effects in 260 patients with TRD. Amelioration of suicidal ideation will be assessed as a secondary endpoint. Inpatients or outpatients, over 18 years of age with a MINI International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) diagnosis of non-psychotic major depressive disorder (MDD) can be enrolled in the study provided that they meet illness severity and full eligibility criteria. Participants are randomized to receive MST or RUL-UB ECT, 2-3 days per week over seven weeks, or a maximum of 21 treatments. The study will involve before-, during-, and after-treatment assessments of depression severity, suicidal ideation, subjective side-effects, and cognitive performance consistent with an intent-to-treat study design approach. DiscussionPositive results from this trial could have an immediate and tremendous impact for patients with TRD. If MST demonstrates comparable antidepressant treatment efficacy to ECT, but with greater cognitive safety, it could rapidly be adopted into clinical practice. Indeed, given that the administration of MST is nearly identical to ECT, the majority of ECT facilities in North America could readily adopt MST. Furthermore, the potential for cognitive safety could lead to improved treatment acceptability. Healthcare providers, patients and care partners, and policymakers would therefore demand this form of convulsive therapy.Trial RegistrationClinical Trials Gov NCT03191058, Registered June 19, 2017
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.013 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.005 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.039 | 0.007 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".