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Ketamine treatment safety in treatment-resistant depression with somatic comorbidities: focus on dissociation and psychotic symptomatology.

Adam Włodarczyk, Wiesław Jerzy Cubała, Maria Węgielnik-gałuszko, Mariusz S. Wiglusz

preprint DOI: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-42473/v2 (opens in new tab)

Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Observational cohort
Sample size 49
Population Inpatients with treatment-resistant depression (major depressive disorder or bipolar depression) and somatic comorbidities
Intervention Intravenous ketamine
Duration Acute administration
Topics Depression Esketamine Ketamine
Citations 1
Registration NCT04226963
Key findings Epilepsy was significantly associated with changes in psychotic symptom scores over time during ketamine treatment, while other somatic comorbidities showed no such effect.

Abstract

Abstract Background and

Objectives: There is evidence for ketamine use in treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Several safety concerns arise regarding adverse drug reactions and specific subpopulations. The aim of this paper is to investigate the safety of intravenous ketamine treatment concerning dissociative and psychotic measures in TRD inpatients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Bipolar depression (BP) with somatic comorbidities.Methods: The study population of forty-nine inpatients comprises of MDD and BP subjects treated with ketamine registered in the naturalistic observational protocol of the tertiary reference unit for mood disorders (NCT04226963). This dataset represents an intermittent analysis of an observational study performed for interim modelling of observational learning. The study may be underpowered due to the small sample size. The observations apply to the inhomogeneous TRD population in a single-site with no blinding and are limited to the acute administration.

Results: The epilepsy was significantly associated with changes in BPRS over time (p=0.008). Psychotic symptomatology with BPRS scores for comorbid somatic conditions excluding epilepsy turned out to be insignificant (p = 0.198) regardless of the diagnosis. However, for a subgroup of patients with epilepsy substantial fluctuation was seen across all administrations in the time course of the study.

Conclusions: In ketamine use, careful consideration of comorbidities and concomitant medication is needed. In ketamine administration, close-clinical supervision is necessary at every visit. Psychotic symptoms must be taken into consideration in planning treatment with TRD patients with epilepsy. Somatic comorbidity may impact dissociative symptomatology.

Trial Registration: Study registered: 04DEC2019, clinicaltrials.com no. NCT04226963 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04226963

Comparable studies

Other observational and cohort studies on ketamine for depression, most cited first.

Study Year Design Participants
Concomitant BDNF and sleep slow wave changes indicate ketamine-induced plasticity in major depressive disorder Patients with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder 2012 Observational cohort n = 30
Altered peripheral immune profiles in treatment-resistant depression: response to ketamine and prediction of treatment outcome Healthy controls and actively depressed patients with treatment-resistant depression... 2017 Observational cohort n = 59
Clinical Predictors of Ketamine Response in Treatment-Resistant Major Depression Treatment-resistant inpatients with DSM-IV-TR-diagnosed major depressive disorder or... 2014 Post hoc analysis of pooled data from four studies n = 108
An investigation of amino-acid neurotransmitters as potential predictors of clinical improvement to ketamine in depression Drug-free patients with major depressive disorder 2011 Observational cohort n = 14
Efficacy of ketamine therapy in the treatment of depression Drug-free/naïve men with severe depression, no history of psychotic disorder, head... 2019 Observational cohort n = 25

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