The Efficacy of Stellate Ganglion Block as Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Therapy: A Pilot Study

Status unconfirmed · Phase 2

Conditions studied: Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic

In brief

RATIONALE: A stellate ganglion nerve block may help relieve symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PURPOSE: This pilot clinical trial is studying the efficacy of a stellate ganglion nerve block in veterans to reduce the symptoms of PTSD in relatively long-standing (Vietnam era) induced or relatively recently induced PTSD (from deployment in Afghanistan or Iraq as part of Operations Enduring Freedom (OEF), Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and New Dawn (OND).

Key facts

Study ID

NCT01533610

Run by

Southern California Institute for Research and Education

People needed

12

Starts

2012-02-01

Expected to finish

2013-02-01

Last updated by the study team

2012-02-15

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 90. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Include significant PTSD symptoms with severe hyper-arousal symptoms.
• Clinician Administered PTSD Scales (CAPS) score, with a total score ≥ 50 needed for enrollment.
• Hyper-arousal severity identified by a high score on the CAPS D scale and a ≥ 10 beat per minute increase in heart rate during the subject's verbal recollection of a standardized version of their traumatic exposure.

You may not qualify if…

• Include psychiatric and medical conditions that would make patients poor candidates for an outpatient procedure.
• Subjects must be able to be cooperative for the procedure and free of significant medical problems that would pose a constant threat to life.

Where it is running

• VA Long Beach Healthcare system — Long Beach, California, United States (enrolling)

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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