International pooled patient-level meta-analysis of ketamine infusion for depression: In search of clinical moderators
Molecular Psychiatry September 7, 2022 Rebecca B Price, Nicholas Kissel, Andrew Baumeister et al. 80 citations
Ketamine given intravenously rapidly reduces depressive symptoms, with effects lasting at least a week. In an analysis of 17 randomized controlled trials with 809 participants, the benefit over placebo was larger for patients who had already failed two or more prior antidepressant trials. However, no patient-level clinical or demographic characteristics—such as age, sex, or diagnosis—could predict who would respond best, limiting the ability to personalize ketamine prescriptions. The findings confirm ketamine's broad effectiveness for depression but show that precision medicine approaches cannot yet guide treatment decisions.