Safety and Tolerability of Ketamine Use in Treatment-Resistant Bipolar Depression Patients with Regard to Central Nervous System Symptomatology: Literature Review and Analysis
Adam Włodarczyk, Wiesław Jerzy Cubała
Medicina February 9, 2020 DOI: 10.3390/medicina56020067 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Review Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Ketamine |
| Topics | Ketamine Serotonin Depression Esketamine |
| Keywords | Tolerability Depression economics Monoaminergic Population Adverse effect Anesthesia Intensive care medicine |
| Citations | 22 |
| Key findings | Ketamine is efficacious and safe for treatment-resistant bipolar depression, but data are lacking for patients with somatic comorbidities and the elderly. |
Abstract
The current psychopharmacological treatment approaches for major depression focus on monoaminergic interventions, which are ineffective in a large proportion of patients. Globally, treatment-resistant bipolar depression (TRBD) affects up to 33% of depressive patients receiving treatment. Certain needs are still unmet and require new approaches. Many studies are in favor of treatments with ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, even in single use, whose effects emerge in minutes to hours post administration. However, little data are available on ketamine performance in TRBD patients with somatic comorbidities, including highly prevalent ones, i.e., cardiovascular disease (heart failure, hypertension, post-myocardial infarct, arrhythmias, etc.) diabetes, and obesity, and depression-associated comorbidities such as stroke, epilepsy, as well as in the elderly population. The literature shows that treatment with ketamine is efficacious and safe, and the majority of adverse drug reactions are mild and tend to mostly disappear within 30 min to 2 h of ketamine administration.
Comparable studies
Other narrative reviews on ketamine for depression, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Synthesizing the Evidence for Ketamine and Esketamine in Treatment-Resistant Depression: An International Expert Opinion on the Available Evidence and Implementation Adults with treatment-resistant depression | 2021 | Review | |
| Ketamine: a paradigm shift for depression research and treatment | 2019 | Review | |
| Rapid‐acting antidepressant ketamine, its metabolites and other candidates: A historical overview and future perspective | 2019 | Review | |
| Ketamine: A tale of two enantiomers | 2020 | Review | |
| Molecular mechanisms underlying the antidepressant actions of arketamine: beyond the NMDA receptor | 2021 | Review |