Assessment of safety and outcome of lateral hypothalamic deep brain stimulation for obesity in a small series of patients with Prader-Willi syndrome

Abstract

The authors describe a small case series of four patients, age range 18–28 years, with Prader-Willi syndrome and obesity. All had received childhood growth hormone therapy, two had previous bariatric surgery, and all had psychiatric comorbidities before the current intervention. All received deep brain stimulation, via electrodes bilaterally implanted in the lateral hypothalamic area, over a 6-month protocol. The intervention was ineffective in reducing body weight or BMI, which actually increased by on average 9.6% and 5.8%, respectively.