Ketamine as an Alternative Treatment to ECT in Major Depressive Disorder

• Status: Completed
• Trial end date: 2019-08-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

Developing more effective and faster acting antidepressant is of outmost clinical importance. Available antidepressant therapies have a delayed therapeutic effect. It typically takes several weeks before symptom relief is evident. Furthermore, antidepressants are relatively ineffective - as many as 30% of patients do not respond to any medication at all. In this study the investigators evaluate the NMDA-receptor antagonist ketamine as a potentially new antidepressant treatment for severely depressed patients and compare its effectiveness with that of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT).

• Phase: Phase 2/Phase 3
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: Pouya Movahed Rad
• Treatments: Ketamine

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• Aged 18-85

• Diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD, according to DSM-IV)

• Inpatients who have been offered and have accepted ECT

• Are eligible to participate

• Score ≥ 20 Points on Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS)

• Must be proficient in spoken and written Swedish

• American Society of Anaesthesiologists physical status classification (ASA) 1-3

Exclusion Criteria:

• Co-morbid conditions that could interfere with the treatment (e.g. primary psychosis)

• Habitual difficulties to speak, hear, remember or reason

• Treatment according to LPT (Lagen om psykiatrisk tvångsvård; Compulsory Psychiatric Care Act)

• On-going or recent (6 months) drug abuse

• Known allergy to the active substance

• Pregnant or breastfeeding women

• Known cardiovascular disease, including angina, acute/chronic congestive heart failure, moderly hypertension or tachyarrhythmia (because exacerbation by sympathomimetic properties of ketamine)

• Pathological conditions in central nervous system with risk of increased intracranial pressure (increased ICP with ketamine)

• Glaucoma (increased IOP with ketamine)

• Porphyria or thyroid disorder (enhanced sympathomimetic properties by ketamine)

• Ongoing severe infection