Research

Read articles and research studies on the effectiveness of ketamine therapy

Ketamine for major depression: New tool, new questions

Ketamine was once used mainly as an anesthetic on battlefields and in operating rooms. Now this medication is gaining ground as a promising treatment for some cases of major depression, which is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In the US, recent estimates show 16 million adults had an episode of major depression in the course of a year.... Read More

Behind the Buzz: How Ketamine Changes the Depressed Patient’s Brain

The Food and Drug Administration’s approval in March of a depression treatment based on ketamine generated headlines, in part, because the drug represents a completely new approach for dealing with a condition the World Health Organization has labeled the leading cause of disability worldwide. The FDA’s approval marks the first genuinely new type of psychiatric drug—for... Read More

How New Ketamine Drug Helps with Depression

On March 5, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first truly new medication for major depression in decades. The drug is a nasal spray called esketamine, derived from ketamine—an anesthetic that has made waves for its surprising antidepressant effect.   Because treatment with esketamine might be so helpful to patients with treatment-resistant depression (meaning... Read More

Emerging concepts on the use of ketamine for chronic pain

ABSTRACT Introduction: The use of ketamine infusions for chronic pain has surged, with utilization exceeding the proliferation of knowledge. A proposed mechanism for the long-term benefit in chronic pain is that ketamine may alter the affective-motivational component of pain. Areas covered: In this review, we discuss the classification and various dimensions of pain, and explore the... Read More

Intranasal Ketamine and Its Potential Role in Cancer-Related Pain

Abstract Cancer-related pain continues to be a significant therapeutic challenge, made more difficult by contemporary opioid use and diversion concerns. Conventional treatment using a tiered approach of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), opioids, and adjuvant agents is limited; and alternatives are needed for patients with rapidly progressing pain and those who develop hyperalgesia and tolerance to opioids.... Read More

Low dose ketamine use in the emergency department, a new direction in pain management

Abstract There is a need for alternative non-opioid analgesics for the treatment of acute, chronic, and refractory pain in the emergency department (ED). Ketamine is a fast acting N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist that provides safe and effective analgesia. The use of low dose ketamine (LDK) (<1mg/kg) provides sub-dissociative levels of analgesia and has been studied as... Read More