Why the study?
Does vagus nerve stimulation reduce cardiac electrical instability assessed by quantitative T-wave alternans in patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy?
Does vagus nerve stimulation reduce cardiac electrical instability assessed by quantitative T-wave alternans in patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy?
Vagus nerve stimulation may have a cardioprotective role by reducing cardiac electrical instability (T-wave alternans) in patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy.
May support cardioprotective role of VNS in drug-resistant epilepsy; hypothesis-generating and requires prospective confirmation.
This is the first report that elevated levels of TWA in patients with drug-refractory partial-onset seizures were reduced in association with VNS, potentially by improving sympathetic/parasympathetic balance. VNS may have a cardioprotective role at stimulation settings typically used for seizure control. These findings indicate the utility of TWA for tracking improvement in cardiac status in this population.
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Schomer et al. (2014) studied this question.
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