• Kristine L Rae Olmsted, Michael Bartoszek, Sean Mulvaney, Brian McLean, Ali Turabi, Ryan Young, Eugene Kim, Russ Vandermaas-Peeler, Jessica Kelley Morgan, Octav Constantinescu, Shawn Kane, Cuong Nguyen, Shawn Hirsch, Breda Munoz, Dennis Wallace, Julie Croxford, James H Lynch, Ronald White, and Bradford B Walters.
• RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
• JAMA Psychiatry. 2020 Feb 1; 77 (2): 130-138.

ImportanceThis is the first multisite, randomized clinical trial of stellate ganglion block (SGB) outcomes on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.ObjectiveTo determine whether paired SGB treatments at 0 and 2 weeks would result in improvement in mean Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5) total symptom severity scores from baseline to 8 weeks.Design, Setting, And ParticipantsThis multisite, blinded, sham-procedure, randomized clinical trial used a 2:1 SGB:sham ratio and was conducted from May 2016 through March 2018 in 3 US Army Interdisciplinary Pain Management Centers. Only physicians performing the procedures and the procedure nurses were aware of the intervention (but not the participants or assessors); their interactions with the participants were scripted and limited to the 2 interventions. Active-duty service members on stable psychotropic medication dosages who had a PTSD Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C) score of 32 or more at screening were included. Key exclusion criteria included a prior SGB treatment, selected psychiatric disorders or substance use disorders, moderate or severe traumatic brain injury, or suicidal ideation in the prior 2 months.InterventionsPaired right-sided SGB or sham procedures at weeks 0 and 2.Main Outcomes And MeasuresImprovement of 10 or more points on mean CAPS-5 total symptom severity scores from baseline to 8 weeks, adjusted for site and baseline total symptom severity scores (planned a priori).ResultsOf 190 screened individuals, 113 (59.5%; 100 male and 13 female participants; mean [SD] age, 37.3 [6.7] years) were eligible and randomized (74 to SGB and 39 to sham treatment), and 108 (95.6% of 113) completed the study. Baseline characteristics were similar in the SGB and sham treatment groups, with mean (SD) CAPS-5 scores of 37.6 (11.2) and 39.8 (14.4), respectively (on a scale of 0-80); 91 (80.0%) met CAPS-5 PTSD criteria. In an intent-to-treat analysis, adjusted mean total symptom severity score change was -12.6 points (95% CI, -15.5 to -9.7 points) for the group receiving SGB treatments, compared with -6.1 points (95% CI, -9.8 to -2.3 points) for those receiving sham treatment (P = .01).Conclusions And RelevanceIn this trial of active-duty service members with PTSD symptoms (at a clinical threshold and subthreshold), 2 SGB treatments 2 weeks apart were effective in reducing CAPS-5 total symptom severity scores over 8 weeks. The mild-moderate baseline level of PTSD symptom severity and short follow-up time limit the generalizability of these findings, but the study suggests that SGB merits further trials as a PTSD treatment adjunct.Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03077919.

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