Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36602582›Full record

ArticleChild's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery2023

Investigation of the effectiveness of vagus nerve stimulation for pediatric drug-resistant epilepsies secondary to nonaccidental trauma.

Nallammai Muthiah, Brigit Joseph, Gregory Varga, Lena Vodovotz, Nikhil Sharma, Taylor J Abel

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Article in Child's nervous system : ChNS : official journal of the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.9field-weighted citation impact, top 29% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 4 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Neurostimulation treatments for epilepsy: Deep brain stimulation, responsive neurostimulation and vagus nerve stimulation.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Nallammai MuthiahUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Brigit JosephUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Gregory VargaUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Lena VodovotzUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Nikhil SharmaUniversity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Taylor J AbelDepartment of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. abeltj@upmc.edu.
University of Pittsburgh · USChildren's Hospital of Pittsburgh · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

purposeEpilepsy following non-accidental trauma (NAT) occurs in 18% of pediatric patients. About 33% of patients with epilepsy develop drug-resistant epilepsy. For these patients, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a palliative treatment option. We aimed to investigate the effectiveness of VNS among pediatric NAT-related epilepsy patients compared to those with non-NAT-related epilepsy.

methodsWe performed an 11-year retrospective analysis of VNS implantations for drug-resistant epilepsy at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. Patients were split into two groups: NAT vs. non-NAT. The primary outcome was the attainment of ≥ 50% seizure frequency reduction at 1-year post-VNS implantation. Fisher's exact tests and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests were used to compare groups. Significance was assessed at the alpha = 0.05 level.

resultsThis analysis included data from 370 pediatric VNS patients, of whom 9 had NAT-related epilepsy. NAT patients had a significantly younger age of epilepsy onset than non-NAT patients (0.3 years vs. 3.3 years). Otherwise, there were no statistically significant baseline differences between groups, including patient sex and quantity of antiseizure medications pre-VNS. Overall, 71% of NAT patients experienced ≥ 50% seizure frequency reduction compared to 48% of non-NAT patients (p = 0.269).

conclusionVNS may allow a higher proportion of pediatric patients with NAT-related epilepsy to achieve ≥ 50% seizure frequency reduction compared to other epilepsy etiologies. While the results of this study were not statistically significant, the effect size was large. Our results underscore the need for larger, multi-center studies to validate the effectiveness of VNS for this patient population.

Indexed as

Drug Resistant EpilepsyEpilepsyVagus Nerve StimulationChildHumansInfantRetrospective StudiesSeizuresTreatment OutcomeAbuseNeurostimulationNon-accidental traumaPost-traumaticVNS

Identifiers

PMID36602582
OpenAlexW4313545397

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.