Intranasal esketamine significantly alleviates depression severity and suicidal ideations in electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) non-responders.
European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience July 1, 2025 Erhan Kavakbasi, Kevin Rosemann, Mert Yilmaz et al. 2 citations
In patients with treatment-resistant depression, a history of not responding to electroconvulsive therapy does not significantly affect the outcome of subsequent treatment with intranasal esketamine. Among 96 inpatients, those who had previously not responded to ECT showed similar improvements in depression scores compared to those who had not received an adequate ECT course. Response and remission rates were numerically lower in the ECT non-response group, but the differences were not statistically significant. The findings support offering esketamine to ECT non-responders, given limited alternative treatments.