FDA: Benefits Of ECT Outweigh Risks For Certain Patients With Severe Depression

The Washington Post (7/18, Hurley) reports that the Food and Drug Administration has concluded “that for carefully selected patients with profound depression, the benefits of electroconvulsive therapy…outweigh the risks of possible memory loss caused by its use.”

The FDA “is proposing to downgrade” ECT from Class III to Class II “for those whose depression has not responded to other treatments or is so severe that they need the kind of rapid response that only ECT can provide.”

However, the FDA “said that too few randomized trials have been published to justify a Class II designation” for other medical conditions like catatonia.

Related Links:

— “FDA: Electroshock has risks but is useful to combat severe depression,” Dan Hurley, Washington Post, July 19, 2016.

Posted in In The News.