
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — As neuromodulation therapy celebrates its 25th year, Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) enrolled the 1st patient into its Medtronic Registry for Epilepsy, a database tracking the safety, efficacy and quality of life of patients receiving deep-brain stimulation for treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy.
The MORE registry will follow about 200 patients from more than 30 centers in Europe over the course of 2 years, looking at the impact of DBS therapy on seizure frequency, type and severity.
Medtronic’s DBS system delivers directed electrical impulses via an implanted device to a part of the brain involved in seizures. The latest study follows in a line of Medtronic DBS research, including 3 level 1 studies and a 10-year follow up study of DBS for Parkinson’s disease, according to a press release.
Medtronic’s DBS won CE Mark approval for epileptic patients in the European Union in August 2010, but has yet to gain similar approval in the U.S., where it is under humanitarian device exemption for a number of conditions, including treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder and advanced Parkinson’s disease.
The first patients received DBS implants at the University of Grenoble in 1986 for treatment of tremor, according to the release.
Medtronic’s DBS system won CE Mark for treatment of tremor in 1993, for Parkinson’s disease in 1998, for primary dystonia in 2003, for obsessive compulsive disorder in 2009 and for epilepsy in 2010. The device maker notched another win for its DBS system from Health Canada just this month.
Medtronic has pioneered the use of DBS therapy in the U.S., a fast-growing market that has attracted the interest of competitors including St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) and Boston Scientific (NYSE:BSX).
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