According to the New York Times (5/26, Caron), research “suggests that, for some patients, the anesthetic ketamine is a promising alternative to electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, currently one of the quickest and most effective therapies for patients with difficult-to-treat depression.” In the “largest head-to-head comparison of the two treatments,” investigators “found that ketamine, when administered intravenously, was at least as effective as ECT in patients with treatment-resistant depression who do not have psychosis.” The findings were published online May 24 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Psychiatric News (5/26) reported, “The participants receiving ECT reported greater problems with memory at the end of treatment compared with those who received ketamine, though by the one-month follow-up, there was little difference between the two groups,” the study revealed. Additionally, “ECT participants reported more musculoskeletal adverse effects, whereas ketamine participants reported more dissociation symptoms.”
HCPlive (5/27, Kunzmann) also covered the study.
Related Links:
— “Ketamine Shows Promise for Hard-to-Treat Depression in New Study “Christina Caron, The New York Times, May 26, 2023