JAMA Psychiatry
June 5, 2019
Ella Daly, Madhukar H. Trivedi, Adam Janik et al.
766 citations
Importance: Controlled studies have shown short-term efficacy of esketamine for treatment-resistant depression (TRD), but long-term effects remain to be established. Objective: To assess the efficacy of esketamine nasal spray plus an oral antidepressant compared with an oral antidepressant plus placebo nasal spray in delaying relapse of depressive symptoms in patients with TRD in stable...
New England Journal of Medicine
May 22, 2019
Jean Kim, Tiffany R. Farchione, Andrew Potter et al.
Esketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression The FDA has approved esketamine, the first antidepressant in a new class, for treatment-resistant depression. The agency weighed the drug’s rapid onset...
American Journal of Psychiatry
May 21, 2019
Vanina Popova, Ella Daly, Madhukar H. Trivedi et al.
879 citations
OBJECTIVE: About one-third of patients with depression fail to achieve remission despite treatment with multiple antidepressants. This study compared the efficacy and safety of switching patients with treatment-resistant depression from an ineffective antidepressant to flexibly dosed esketamine nasal spray plus a newly initiated antidepressant or to a newly initiated antidepressant (active...
Medicine
September 1, 2018
Fernanda S. Correia-Melo, Gustavo C. Leal, Michelle S. Carvalho et al.
61 citations
INTRODUCTION: The use of ketamine as an option in the treatment of depressive disorder is growing rapidly, supported by numerous clinical trials attesting its efficacy and safety. Esketamine, the S (+) enantiomer of ketamine, is the most widely used form in the anesthetic environment in some countries, and new studies have shown that it may also be effective in depression and with better...
European Neuropsychopharmacology
August 2018
Lucie Bartova, Konstantinos Papageorgiou, Ivan Milenkovic et al.
Rapid anti-suicidal and antidepressant effects of ketamine have repeatedly been confirmed in unipolar and bipolar depression. Although meaningful antidepressant efficacy of ketamine has also been shown in depressed patients with a history of psychotic symptoms, its administration in psychotic disorders has largely been neglected due to its potential to exacerbate dissociative or psychotic...
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
July 14, 2018
Kenji Hashimoto, Chun Yang
The N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist (R,S)ketamine has been hailed as the most important advance in the treatment of depression for the past 50 years. The rapid and sustained antidepressant effects of (R,S)-ketamine have spurred a great deal of research interest, with growing off-label use for the treatment of depression, although the concerns about the safety of repeated...
The Brown University Psychopharmacology Update
July 9, 2018
A proof‐of‐concept study involving 68 participants found that intranasal esketamine was more effective than placebo in the short term in reducing depressive symptoms in patients at imminent risk for suicide. Improvement over placebo was apparent four hours after administration — an important finding given that conventional treatments for depression take substantially longer to generate an...
Psychiatric News
May 4, 2018
Mark Moran
If replication trials support these findings, safeguards will need to be established to guard against the risk of abuse while ensuring access to those patients who may benefit from esketamine. Intranasal esketamine appears to rapidly improve depression scores and measures of suicidality among depressed patients at imminent risk of suicide, according to a report published April 16 in AJP in...
CNS Drugs
May 2018
Patricio Molero, J A Ramos-Quiroga, Rocío Martín‐Santos et al.
Ketamine and its enantiomer S-ketamine (esketamine) are promising candidates to produce a rapid-onset antidepressant effect in treatment-resistant depression. Ketamine causes continued blockade of the glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor, though this might not primarily mediate the antidepressant effect. Alternative hypotheses include selectivity for the NMDA receptor subtype...
Journal watch
April 23, 2018
Joel Yager
Intravenous ketamine reduces symptoms of depression and suicidality for up to several weeks, but less is known about the non–FDA-approved intranasal