ketamine Rotex 500mg/10ml 30 vials

What is ketamine?

Ketamine is used as an anesthetic for surgery, a treatment for depression, and is a drug of abuse. Ketamine is FDA-approved as an anesthetic to put you to sleep for surgery and to help prevent pain and discomfort. Ketamine for depression is an off-label use, and its use for depression is currently being researched in clinical trials. It is also a drug of abuse that is used illegally recreationally for its hallucinogenic properties and is known to be a “date rape” drug as it causes short-term memory loss.

Ketamine is not an opioid (narcotic); it is an NMDA receptor antagonist, which means it blocks the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) neurotransmitter in the brain.

When used for anesthesia, ketamine is given as an intravenous injection (IV) or as an intramuscular injection (IM).

Esketamine (Spravato) is used to treat depression; it is one of the forms of racemic ketamine and was FDA-approved in 2019 for specific types of depression. Spravato is a nasal spray that is used under strict medical supervision and is not used by patients at home.

Ketamine is FDA-approved as a general anesthetic to be used as the sole anesthetic agent for diagnostic and surgical procedures that do not require skeletal muscle relaxation. It is also used to induce anesthesia prior to the administration of other general anesthetic agents and as a supplement to other anesthetic agents. Ketamine is not FDA-approved for depression; it is used off-label for this condition.

Ketamine Therapy

Ketamine infusion therapy has been used for depression in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) for its rapid antidepressant effects. Depression is an off-label use of ketamine as it is not an FDA-approved indication. In clinical trials ketamine therapy is mainly given as intravenous infusion, but may be given as intranasal spray, slow release tablets, sublingual tablets, or other forms.

In clinical trials, ketamine infusions have been given as a single dose once or in multi-dose therapy, as infusions once, twice, or 3 times weekly for 2 weeks during the acute treatment phase. Sometimes infusions have been continued once or twice weekly during the continuation phase for a total of 4–6 weeks of therapy or gradually tapered. In clinical trials ketamine infusion therapy dose is lower than an anesthetic dose. If patients have not responded to several initial infusions, then it appears unlikely that they will respond to further infusions.