Study suggests anesthetic agent may have rapid antidepressa...( A single intravenous infusion of a dru...),Health

A single intravenous infusion of a drug known as ketamine, which is a general anesthetic agent, may relieve symptoms of depression within two hours and remain effective for up to one week, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The discovery of antidepressant medications has revolutionized the treatment of depression, according to background information in the article. However, most currently available medications do not begin to relieve the symptoms of depression for several weeks. During this lag period, patients are at risk for self-harm and even suicide, especially within the first nine days of treatment. "Pharmacological strategies that have rapid onset of antidepressant effects within hours or even a few days and that are sustained would therefore have an enormous impact on public health," the authors write.

Carlos A. Zarate Jr., M.D., and colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md., studied the effects of ketamine in 12 women and six men (average age 46.7 years) with treatment-resistant depression, meaning that they were unsuccessfully treated with other antidepressants at least twice. After a two-week drug-free period, participants received two intravenous infusions one week apart, one with ketamine (.5 milligrams per kilogram of body weight) dissolved in saline and the other with 50 milliliters of pure saline (placebo). Patients were randomly assigned to receive either the ketamine or the placebo infusion first. They underwent tests to assess the severity of their depression one hour before the infusion as well as 40, 80, 110 and 230 minutes and one, two, three and seven days afterward.

Within 110 minutes after the infusion, patients who received ketamine rather than placebo showed significant improvement. The effect lasted through the following week. On the day after treatment, 71 percent of the 17 participants who rece
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Contact: Susan Cahill
301-443-4536
JAMA and Archives Journals
7-Aug-2006