"More recently, psychiatrists have prescribed it for treatment-resistant depression. Unlike traditional antidepressants, which can take weeks to work, ketamine can provide relief in hours - even snapping people out of suicidal spirals. "It really is a potentially life-saving drug for many people," said Gerard Sanacora, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. "The best evidence by far is for people with major depressive disorder.""
"The market for ketamine really took off after 2019, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved esketamine, a chemically related compound, for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Clinicians also prescribe ketamine off-label for everything from anxiety to chronic pain. As demand has grown, so has concern about uneven oversight: the number of ketamine clinics nationwide jumped from 60 in 2015 to 1,500 today, according to a 2024 industry report."
""There's more and more of these clinics that are popping up that are touting ketamine as a treatment for depression, PTSD, OCD and more without it actually being currently in practice guidelines," said Smita Das, an addiction psychiatrist at Stanford Medicine. "There's a lot of hope. However, just because there is a study of a small handful of people, we still don't know how effective that medication is in the long term.""
Ketamine has been prescribed increasingly for treatment-resistant depression because it can produce symptom relief within hours, including rapid reductions in suicidal ideation. Esketamine received FDA approval in 2019, and clinicians now use ketamine off-label for anxiety, PTSD, OCD and chronic pain. Clinic numbers expanded dramatically from about 60 in 2015 to roughly 1,500 by 2024, creating a varied landscape of settings and protocols. Practices differ on dosing, monitoring and provision of psychological support, producing a patchwork of protections. Limited long-term evidence and inconsistent clinical guidelines fuel concern among psychiatrists and addiction specialists.
Read at Kqed
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