A major new study published in BMJ Mental Health has found that transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which applies magnetic energy to the brain, can be a cost-effective treatment option for moderate and severe forms of depression that have not responded to other treatments. The economic analysis compared TMS to usual care in specialist mental health services and found that TMS reduces depressive symptoms, eases pressures on informal carers and NHS resources, and helps people get back to work.
Major depression is the leading cause of disability lost years worldwide, and suicide from depression is one of the biggest killers of people aged 15-49. Antidepressants and therapy delivered as first or second-line treatments help two-thirds of people with depression, but the remaining third have treatment-resistant depression (TRD), defined as a lack of response to two courses of antidepressants.
TMS is an outpatient treatment where people have powerful magnetic pulses delivered to the left side of their head just in front of the temporal area of the scalp. The person is conscious and has at least 20 sessions over a four-to-six-week period. Although TMS was approved in 2015 by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) for use in the NHS, it remains inaccessible for the majority of patients, available in only one in seven NHS Trusts.
The study found that from a health-service perspective, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS) had costs of 12,093 and 12,959 pounds per quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) gained, respectively, compared to usual care. From a broader societal perspective, both improved health, reduced informal care hours, and were cost-saving. The findings demonstrate that services achieving a streamlined high-throughput model of care can deliver highly cost-effective treatment.
This article is an AI-assisted summary. All facts and figures are drawn from the original report: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260127/Transcranial-magnetic-stimulation-can-be-a-cost-effective-treatment-option-for-depression.aspx