A new study the New England Medical Journal on Wednesday found that intravenous ketamine has performed similarly to electroconvulsive treatment , which is the "gold standard" for treatment -resistant major depression. Working Details and Basic Findings For the study, researchers evaluated how effective ketamine was against treatment -resistant major depression. Last year, smaller ketamine comparison studies focusing on major depression rather than treatment-resistant depression found that the meta-analysis of the ECT has led to better results. This new study found that intravenous ketamine was not "lower" to ECT. In total, the new study recorded 403 people with psychosis -free major depression who did not respond to the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants. Generally, 38 patients withdrew from the study before receiving treatment. During a three -week treatment period, ketamine patients received IV infusion twice a week. Meanwhile, ECT patients were advised to receive three treatment every week. Approximately 93% of all two treatment groups completed full treatment.39% of ECT patients changed their regimes. Ultimately, 55.4% of the patients undergoing ketamine responded to treatment compared to 41.2% response between ECT fields. The Jew was defined as a 50% or larger decrease in the score of a patient in the 16-item fast inventory of the depressive symptomatology. During a six -month follow -up, 19% of the patients with treatment response in the ketamine group experienced recurrence in the first month compared to 35.4% in the ECT group. Up to 34.5% and 56.3%, respectively. Amit Anand, a psychiatrist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, said, "The lack of ketamine was not inferior, etc. was surprising that it was gold standard for 80 years for the treatment of resistant depression.""And in fact, Ketamin's effectiveness seems a little better than ECT for major depression in total results, in total results." Anand, "However, our initial hypothesis and work design was to find out if the ketamine was lower than ECT." He said "Therefore, we cannot comment compared to ECT for non -psychotic resistant depression about the superiority of ketamine." Comment According to Patrick Oliver, the medical director of the Mindpeace Kinics clinics, who were not involved in the study but investigated the drug as depression therapy, the results of the findings were designed to show "very large". For patients who do not respond to the SSRIs, Oliver suggested to choose ketamini from the end.He said. ECT, which is performed under general anesthesia, poses its own risks, including cognitive deterioration potential, such as long -term memory loss. Although the exact risks are not well documented, it is known that ketamine is addictive. Without cultivation or additional data, some experts are worried that the use of common ketamine may cause an outbreak of addiction similar to the opioid crisis. Robert Freedman, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Denver, said, "The existing essay was not long, the time of follow -up was not long, he did not evaluate the future drug search behavior between those who had or without ketamine answers." Medicine wrote in an editor published next to the new study."We need to remember that only a little doctor is responsible for the oxicodone epidemic." Anand stated that the evidence of the potential of addiction is minimal - especially in the dose used in the experiment. "I don't think people are abusing it." However, 41% of the work participants assigned to receive ketamine continued to use during the six -month follow -up period. Ultimately, "[I] is a matter of risk assessment for each patient," heifes. "None of this is not risk -free, neither of them are transformatives." Gotopnews.com