Loading...
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a highly effective antidepressant in individuals with treatment-resistant depression. Intravenous infusions of the anesthetic ketamine can result in rapid improvement in treatment-resistant depression, although whether this therapeutic effect persists after the completion of multiple infusions is not established. Now, researchers have tested whether using ketamine for anesthesia during ECT improves the outcomes of depressed patients while mitigating the cognitive effects of ECT. This question has important financial implications for depressed patients in the U.S., because insurance covers ECT anesthesia but not ketamine infusions.
Forty patients with severe depression were randomized to receive ketamine or …