Impact analysis of expanded access to ketamine for treatment-resistant depression.
Journal of comparative effectiveness research June 1, 2025 Thanh Lu, Sophia D'Angelo, Zohra Tayebali et al.
Expanding access to intravenous ketamine for US patients with nonpsychotic treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and moderate-to-severe depression, compared to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), could yield net societal savings of $828.2 million annually over five years, including $95.3 million in patient savings and $743.7 million in payer savings, while imposing an additional $10.8 million burden on caregiver time. A population-level Markov simulation model, parameterized with data from a randomized trial, projected that expanded ketamine access would increase the number of treated patients by 75,000 in the first year and 4,292 annually thereafter. Ketamine may be a noninferior treatment relative to ECT for improving depression symptoms.