Researchers seeking the best methods for treating depression that is resistant to medication interventions have reported ‘ketamine infusion’ is as effective as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in treating major depressive disorder – with little to no side effects.
The 2023 US study, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, directly compared the use of ketamine infusions with electroconvulsive therapy – two interventions for treatment- resistant major depression – on 365 randomised patients who had been referred for ECT at 5 clinical sites.
One group of 195 received ketamine intravenous infusions twice weekly for 3 weeks; the other group of 170 received electroconvulsive therapy 3 times weekly for 3 weeks.
Responses to treatment were evaluated on ‘self-reports’ using a specific scoring method (a higher score indicated worse depression) and a ‘treatment response’ was defined as a score that decreased by at least 50%.
Researchers then followed up over 6 months among participants who experienced a response.
Both groups experienced an improvement in depressive symptoms: 55% in the ketamine group saw improvement, and 41% in the ECT group saw improvement.
Overall, the ketamine intervention group had fewer problems with memory recall after the 3 weeks of treatment.
Study author Dr Amit Anand, director at psychiatry translational clinical trials at Boston’s Mass General Brigham, told medicalnewstoday.com: ‘The goal was to investigate whether subanaesthetic intravenous ketamine was nearly as good as ECT for treatment-resistant depression.
‘The results were a bit surprising, as ketamine did even better than that. Ketamine is a good alternative for patients who have been recommended for ECT for treatment of their resistant depression.’
University of California San Diego’s Professor David Feifel (not involved in the study) commented: ‘The finding that 6 sessions of ketamine was no less effective than 9 sessions of ECT and produced milder side effects than ECT has enormous implications for guiding which treatment should be recommended when patients fail to improve with firstline treatments.’
