Ketamine To Become New Treatment For Depression Soon?

Janssen Pharmaceutical announced on Tuesday that the Food and Drug Administration has placed the experimental drug esketamine (popularly known as ketamine) on the fast lane to officially approve it to be used for treating severe depression.

It was said that the "breakthrough therapy" would give psychiatrists a new way to manage patients with suicidal tendencies, and would also be known as the first new treatment for major depression in almost half a century.

According to CNN, ketamine is a psychedelic club drug popularly known as "Special K" that has been in circulation since the 1960s. It was given approval by the FDA to be used in humans in 1970, and shortly after, military doctors used the drug on American soldiers fighting in the war as a sedative and pain reliever. Today the drug is commonly used as veterinary anesthetic. However, this drug is also widely known as the top date-rape drug used for its power to quickly numb and make a person immobile.

Despite all these, people have been known to take ketamine for pain, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. "We don't exactly know how it works," said Dr. Julie Coffman of the department of internal medicine, hospice and palliative medicine at OhioHealth Riverside Methodist Hospital, who is not affiliated with Janssen or any pharmaceutical company. Newser.com has reported Dr. Coffman explaining that the drug might be able to transform damaged nerves that caused depression.

Ketamine prompts neuroplastic processes which creates new connections among brain cells, said Dr. Dan Iosifescu, an associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is named on a license patent for using ketamine to treat depression. "What's unique about ketamine is, this happens in hours or days, while with other depression medications, this happens in weeks to months," Iosifescu said.

Dr. Coffman also said in a report that she once used a single dose of ketamine to a depressed patient who was not responding to any antidepressants she gave. Dr. Coffman found that that single oral dose of ketamine "had a very positive effect," and helped improve his anxiety symptoms. "Even from his family's standpoint. They noticed a marked improvement," Coffman said. The drug is said to last for up to 30 days and can take effect within 4 hours. But, the drug has a tendency to elevate blood pressure and reverse tolerance to opioids, among other things. So, if the drug is approved by the FDA, it should only be given under the supervision of a health professional with patients to be monitored every two hours after taking the medication,

There have already been several researches that have studies the potency of the drug for depression. However, most of the studies were small studies that tested a dose of ketamine on acutely depressed patients. The 3 year-trial in Australia and New Zealand was part of the requirements to prove whether the drug can bring about a long-term response in depressed patients when given in multiple doses. This would also determine which method of administration would be most effective, either intravenously, nasally or subcutaneously, The Guardian reported.

At present, Janssen is conducting clinical trials for two uses for esketamine, one for treatment-resistant depression and another for depression with suicidal thoughts. The company plans to present its phase III data for treatment-resistant depression in 2018 and file with the FDA that year.