UAMS First in Nation to Offer Groundbreaking Therapy for Treatment-Resistant Depression

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) is the first medical facility in the United States to provide an innovative therapeutic treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD).

The SAINT® neuromodulation system, developed by Magnus Medical, Inc., has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat adults with depression who have not achieved improvement in their condition from the use of antidepressant medications. SAINT works by leveraging structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to inform a proprietary algorithm that pinpoints the optimal anatomical target for precise neurostimulation in individuals with major depression.

The treatment is performed on an accelerated, five-day timeline, reducing the patient’s treatment time from weeks to days. In previous clinical trials, treatment with SAINT for MDD resulted in a significant reduction in depressive symptoms at four weeks post-treatment following the five-day treatment protocol. Currently, SAINT can only be provided to patients who are being treated as inpatients.