Is electroconvulsive therapy safe in the presence of an intracranial metallic object?
After carefully weighing benefits and risks in each individual case, psychiatrists should not be reluctant to use ECT in patients with intracranial metallic objects. Apart from avoiding empirical dosage titration to minimize the exposure to current, positioning the electrodes to avoid the electric current of heating the metal, and continuing antiepileptic agents in high-risk patients, no precautions need to be considered.
Our findings indicate that down-regulation of RKIP expression is a major factor in activation of the IGF-I/ERK/MAPK pathway during human hepatocarcinogenesis.