Cryovagotomy Diabetes Trial

The pilot study will assess the feasibility and efficacy of cryoablation procedure to freeze the vagus nerve in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. Aim 1 will focus on changes in glycemic control. Aim 2 will evaluate differences in body weight and anthropometric measurements. This study will provide much needed data for a novel therapeutic intervention to manage obese patients with type 2 diabetes.

Obesity is a growing epidemic, currently affecting over 1/3 of the adult US population and is a well-established risk factor for the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Given that the majority of patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are obese, weight loss is the cornerstone of treatment, and has been shown to decrease risk of long term complications, lead to improvements in A1c and lipid levels, as well as decreased need for medications and improvements in quality of life. Unfortunately, lifestyle intervention is often ineffective at achieving long-term sustainable, clinically significant weight loss. Bariatric surgery is a successful intervention, leading to 20-30% weight loss with remission of diabetes in 30-65% of patients 1-5 years post surgery. However, this invasive procedure is associated with high rates of short- and long-term complications, including need for reoperations, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, anemia, and osteoporosis. It is clear that the current management options for obese patients, including lifestyle changes, medications and surgery, are suboptimal and innovative strategies are necessary to optimize diabetes control and weight management. Energy balance and glycemic control are mediated largely by the gut-brain axis, specifically the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve can stimulate or inhibit food intake depending on nutritional status. Vagal nerve signaling is disrupted in the setting of obesity and thought to contribute to overeating behaviors. Vagus nerve blockade has the potential to be a highly efficacious, minimally invasive intervention to address current obesity treatment limitations. Clinical studies evaluating the efficacy of an implantable electric vagus nerve blockade device found that subjects lost on average 8.8% of total body weight at 1 year; patients with T2D experienced improved glycemic control, with an average A1c improvement of 1.0% at 12 months. Unfortunately, nearly 40% of subjects experienced side effects related to the device. A recent pilot study from the researchers of this study reported weight loss efficacy of a minimally invasive computerized tomography (CT) guided cryoablation of the vagus nerve in obese, non-diabetic subjects. Patients lost 5.6% of total body weight and 22.7% excess body weight at 6 months with no significant side effects. The purpose of this current study is to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of this procedure through a randomized control trial in obese patients with T2D. The researchers hypothesize that those patients undergoing the cryoablation procedure will experience improvement in glycemic control and enhanced weight loss at 6 months follow-up compared to the control group. Participants will be randomized to receive either CT guided cryoablation of the vagus nerve plus lifestyle intervention or lifestyle intervention alone. The lifestyle intervention lasts for 26 weeks and participants will be followed for 12 months in total.