CNS Response Provides Poster Review of Successful Medication Washout
November 05, 2008
The Poster Will Be Discussed During the Company’s Upcoming Conference Call Being Held Friday, November 7, at 2:00 P.M. EST
Costa Mesa, Calif. – November 5, 2008 – CNS Response, Inc. (OTCBB: CNSO) reported today the results of a study presented at the U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress by Daniel Hoffman, M.D., Chief Medical Officer for CNS Response and six other psychiatrists. The poster presentation, titled “Medication Washout: Imposing Discontinuation of A Diagnostic and Therapeutic Tool?” provides an analysis of the combined experiences of these psychiatrists who routinely ‘washout’ patients to perform a CNS Response rEEG® analysis or to develop a baseline understanding of a patient’s behavior without medication influence.
“Psychiatrists have concerns about discontinuing patients from prescribed psychotropics even at times when the patient has yet to evidence improvement,” said CNS Response Chief Medical Officer Daniel Hoffman, M.D. “Yet many patients present with medication stacking – often using one drug to treat the side effect of another. Over years of treatment by a variety of physicians, it can become difficult to know which medication is actually needed. As a famous marketer once said, ‘I know half of my marketing dollars are wasted, I just don’t know which half.’ This is often the dilemma of a psychiatrist trying to find efficiency in treating a long-standing patient. Now they will have a better understanding of the frequency of an adverse response when considering medication discontinuation for a short period of time.”
Washout of medication was part of obtaining a rEEG and provided clinicians with an opportunity to see how often there were complications from strategically removing patients’ medications. The data, provided from 2009 patients by various clinicians and research sites, concluded that only one percent, or 20 patients, complained about the tapering off of their medications and only a quarter of a percent, or five patients, were unable to complete the process.
“The overall goal of this study was to make clinicians more comfortable with the washout process,” commented Dr. Hoffman. “The poster outlines a number of important steps and guidelines to successfully taper patients off their medications. We found that allowing the patient to have input into the decision of taper speed helps create a sense of teamwork. When patients anticipating a rEEG were given this choice, almost uniformly they elected a more rapid, yet appropriate, taper schedule in order to reduce the length of time for any potential discomfort. “
Dr. Hoffman continued, “I think the guidelines used by this experienced group of physicians and shared in the poster should be part of the consideration of a medication washout process. Of course, another important point is that the amount of time necessary to eliminate medications varies dramatically by drug. Some of these patients needed only to discontinue their medication for a day. Others may be on medications that take weeks to washout. In these cases, we typically suggest a medication strategy that allows for a short half-life medication to replace their long half-life medication. The patient will then have a shorter washout period from this replacement medication. I think these results demonstrate that when such strategies are employed, medication washout can be accomplished for the vast majority of patients without adverse response.”
The full poster presentation and analysis of results are available at www.cnsresponse.com/woposterpresentation
Please join CNS Response CEO, Len Brandt and CMO, Daniel Hoffman for the company’s conference call being held November 7, at 2:00 p.m. EST. Among other topics, Mr. Brandt and Dr. Hoffman will be discussing five recent poster presentations at the U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in five posters.
The conference call dial-in number for both U.S. and international callers is 1-480-629-9039. Please dial in to the conference five minutes before the call is scheduled to begin. Ask the operator for the CNS Response call.
An audio replay of the conference call will be available from 5:00 p.m. EST, Friday, November 7, until Midnight EST, Friday, November 21, 2008. It can be accessed by dialing 1-303-590-3030 and entering conference number 3936802.
About CNS Response
CNS Response is a life-sciences data company whose patented system provides treatment guidance to psychiatrists and other physicians for patients with behavioral (mental or addictive) disorders. This technology allows CNS Response to create and provide simple reports (“rEEG® Reports”) that specifically guide physicians to treatment strategies based on the patient’s own physiology.
rEEG® utilizes traditional electroencephalography (EEG) in conjunction with a normative database and a proprietary clinical (symptomatic) database to identify the following: (1) medication classes most likely to be needed; and (2) medications within these classes with the most probable treatment potential for each patient. Reports are provided to physicians in a relationship analogous to that of a reference laboratory. Prospective, retrospective and field studies of treatment-resistant patients have reported treatment success of 70 percent or greater in managed care, outpatient psychiatric and residential substance abuse clinical settings.
In addition to providing analytical support to physicians, CNS Response is also an aid to pharmaceutical developers, who can use rEEG to (1) stratify study populations to improve the success of FDA clinical trials; (2) provide insight on effective therapeutic dosing of investigational drugs; (3) identify additional indications for psychiatric medications; (4) provide insight into effective drug combinations; and (5) discover opportunities for decision analytics and support. In addition to these applications, CNS Response continues to investigate the use of rEEG analysis for development of proprietary pharmaceutical opportunities.
Safe Harbor Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
Except for the historical information contained herein, the matters discussed are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. These statements involve risks and uncertainties as set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements made herein.
Contact:
Investor and Media Relations:
Marty Tullio
McCloud Communications LLC
949.553.9748
marty@mccloudcommunications.com
# # #
Back to News and Press