Table 2:

Transcranial magnetic stimulation studies

Study	Study type	No. of patients; condition	Outcome
Lam et al. (28)	Meta-analysis	24 RCTs involving 1092 patients; MDD or bipolar disorder	Pooled 25% response (v. 9% with sham) and 17% remission (v. 6% with sham) with 1–6 weeks (5–30 sessions) of active rTMS of the right, left or bilateral DLPFC
O’Reardon et al. (29)	Multicentre RCT, sham control	301 patients; MDD	25% response (v. 13.7% with sham) and 16% remission (v. 8.9% with sham) on HRSD-17 with 6 weeks (30 sessions) of active rTMS of the left DLPFC
George et al. (30)	Multicentre RCT, sham control	190 patients; MDD	15% response (v. 5.0% with sham) and 14% remission (v. 5.1% with sham) on HRSD-17 with variable 3–6 weeks (15–30 sessions) active rTMS of the left DLPFC
Fitzgerald et al. (31)	Multicentre open-label RCT	219 patients; MDD, bipolar I/II	53% response and 32% remission on HRSD-17 with 4 weeks (20 sessions) active rTMS of the left, right or bilateral DLPFC, on HRSD-17; no significant differences across target sites
McDonald et al. (32)	Multicentre RCT, sham control	141 patients; MDD	41% response and 31% remission on HRSD-24 with variable 6–12 weeks (30–60 sessions) active rTMS of left DLPFC
Galletly et al. (33)	Multicentre open-label RCT	77 patients; MDD, bipolar disorder I/II	43% response and 33% remission on HRSD-21 with 4–6 weeks (18–20 sessions) active rTMS of left and right DLPFC

Note: DLPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, HRSD = Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression, MDD = major depressive disorder, NA = not applicable, RCT = randomized control trial, rTMS = repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation.