Why the study?
Is electroconvulsive therapy safe and effective in depressed elderly patients with intracranial tumors lacking mass effect or increased intracranial pressure?
Is electroconvulsive therapy safe and effective in depressed elderly patients with intracranial tumors lacking mass effect or increased intracranial pressure?
Electroconvulsive therapy may be administered safely in depressed elderly patients with incidental intracranial tumors that do not cause increased intracranial pressure or mass effect.
ECT may warrant cautious consideration in select elderly depressed patients with non-mass-effect tumors; hypothesis-generating and requires prospective confirmation.
Five cases of depressed elderly patients with intracranial tumors treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are reported. None had adverse reactions to ECT and all had a positive response. The largest tumor was 4 cm in diameter. No case had evidence of increased intracranial pressure or mass effect. Three tumors were meningiomas, the other two were an acoustic neuroma and a pituitary adenoma. Given that increased use of neuroimaging techniques may result in discovery of incidental intracranial tumors in the depressed elderly prior to ECT, this report suggests that ECT in such patients may be administered safely.
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Suzanne Holroyd (1993) studied this question.
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