Background: Deep brain stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, ventral striatum, or internal capsule region has shown a 45%-60% response rate in adults with severe treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder, regardless of which target is used. We sought to improve the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation by placing the electrode along a trajectory including these 3 targets, enabling a change of stimulation site depending on the patient's response.
Methods: This study used the medical records of 14 patients from 4 different Spanish institutions: 7 from the Hospital Universitario La Princesa, 3 from the Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, 2 from Hospital Universitario Fundación Jiménez Díaz, and 2 from Hospital Universitari Son Espases. All patients were operated on under the same protocol. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected.
Results: Of 14 patients, 11 showed significant improvement in obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, as evident in a reduction ≥35% in Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale scores following stimulation relative to preoperative scores. Seven patients responded to stimulation at the nucleus accumbens (the first area we set for stimulation), whereas 4 patients needed to have the active contact switched to the internal capsule to benefit from stimulation.
Conclusions: Deep brain stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, internal capsule, and ventral striatum significantly benefited our cohort of patients with medication-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder. Electrode insertion through the 3 main targets might confer additional therapeutic efficacy.
Keywords: Deep brain stimulation; Internal capsule; Nucleus accumbens; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Ventral striatum.
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