The not so little matter of how to dose ketamine in patients with depression

Abstract

It is almost axiomatic with most drugs and for most disorders in psychiatry that whatever elicits response and remission during the acute phase of illness will prevent relapse and recurrence of illness during the maintenance phase of treatment. Logically, this principle should apply to ketamine, as well, when the drug is used for patients with depression; thus, at the very least, the treatment, if effective, should be continued into the short-term until the patient is stable enough to be maintained on another treatment, such as a conventional oral antidepressant drug. In this context, in this issue of the journal, d'Andrea et al. 1 propose a different strategy.