Wayne State University School of Medicine student Katherine Sommers was awarded the 2024 People's Choice Award for her case report on transcranial magnetic resonance and intravenous ketamine therapy in an out-patient setting at the American Psychiatric Association’s 2024 Mental Health Services Conference, held Sept. 26-28 in Baltimore. 

Sommers was the primary author of the poster, “Concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and ketamine therapy: a more accessible alternative to electroconvulsive therapy for treatment-resistant depression?” co-authored by her brother, Ronald Sommers, M.D., a psychiatrist in Spokane, Wash.

Treatment resistant depression, or TRD, is a severe subset of major depressive disorder, defined by the failure of two adequate antidepressant medication trials. Sommers presented the case of a 46-year-old female with a relapse into a major depressive disorder episode with severe symptoms, impacting many aspects of her life, including her work, social interactions and physical health. She was unwilling to receive care in an in-patient setting because she would be unable to work and care for her family at home, Katherine Sommers said. After thoroughly discussing her options with her psychiatrist, concurrent trials of subacute intravenous ketamine infusions and theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, therapy sessions were started.

In TMS, an electromagnetic coil placed against the scalp creates a magnetic field that stimulates certain areas of the brain.

“Electroconvulsive therapy works very well to treat severe depression that otherwise does not improve with medication, but it is nearly impossible to access it for many patients. It requires patients to take significant time off of work and they usually need to remain inpatient,” Sommers said. “The patient was able to continue working and caring for her family while receiving 20- to 40-minute treatments over a course of several weeks in out-patient settings, which ultimately resolved her major depressive episode that otherwise had not responded to countless medications.”

TMS is safe, well-tolerated and does not require patients to undergo generalized anesthesia and can therefore be performed in small out-patient clinics with minimal staffing requirements, Sommers said. Ketamine can also be administered in small outpatient clinics.

“The effectiveness of TMS and ketamine individually as interventions for TRD is well-established, however data is scant on combining these interventions in prior ECT-responders,” she added. “Due to the inaccessibility of ECT for many patients, it is worthwhile for providers to consider combination TMS and ketamine therapy to effectively treat severe TRD.”

After completing treatment, the patient reported no longer feeling severely depressed. “The patient returned to her baseline, and felt her depression was in remission and well-controlled on the novel treatment she was started on,” she said.

Katherine Sommers is a member of the M.D. Class of 2026, former president of the Senior Citizen Outreach Program student organization, and a student advisor for the Robert R. Frank Student-Run Free Clinic.