Non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of acute asthma exacerbations—results from an initial case series

A prospective multicentre clinical study was initiated to evaluate the safety and potential clinical benefit of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) for the treatment of bronchoconstriction exacerbations in asthmatics. Due to slow enrolment and design changes of the device, the study was prematurely terminated after enrolment of four eligible patients. Three of the four patients were considered treatment successes based on improvement in FEV 1 , improvement in VAS dyspnoea scoring, and the absence of device-related adverse events. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01385306