Ketamine as an Alternative Treatment to ECT in Major Depressive Disorder
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2019-08-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
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).