According to a study being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY® 2017 annual meeting, ketamine, a drug routinely used for pain relief and increasingly utilized for depression, may help people with migraine pain who have not found relief from previous therapies.
After receiving a three- to seven-day course of inpatient ketamine treatment, the research of 61 patients revealed that over 75% of them noticed an improvement in the severity of their migraines. Although the medication is used to create general anesthesia, it also offers effective pain relief in smaller dosages to patients with a variety of severe diseases.
“Ketamine may hold promise as a treatment for migraine headaches in patients who have failed other treatments,” said study co-author Eric Schwenk, M.D., director of orthopedic anesthesia at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.
“Our study focused only on short-term relief, but it is encouraging that this treatment might have the potential to help patients long-term. Our work provides the basis for future, prospective studies that involve larger numbers of patients.”
According to estimates, 12% of Americans experience migraines, which are frequent occurrences of mild to severe throbbing or pulsing pain. A portion of these patients, along with those who experience different kinds of headaches, don’t improve after receiving treatment.
Ketamine may hold promise as a treatment for migraine headaches in patients who have failed other treatments. Our study focused only on short-term relief, but it is encouraging that this treatment might have the potential to help patients long-term. Our work provides the basis for future, prospective studies that involve larger numbers of patients.
Eric Schwenk
People who are experiencing migraines are frequently particularly sensitive to light and sound, and they may feel queasy or vomit. Women experience migraines three times more frequently than men do. Data from patients who got ketamine infusions for migraines that were unresponsive to other treatments were examined by the researchers.
The average migraine headache pain rating upon admission was 7.5 on a scale of 0–10, however, it was only 3.4 at discharge. The average infusion time was 5.1 days, with day 4 receiving the lowest pain ratings. The negative consequences were typically minor.
Although ketamine is used to treat intractable migraines at his institution, according to Dr. Schwenk, the medication is still not generally accessible. This fall, a new infusion center will open at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital to treat additional patients with headaches using ketamine.
“We hope to expand its use to both more patients and more conditions in the future,” he said.
“Due to the retrospective nature of the study, we cannot definitively say that ketamine is entirely responsible for the pain relief, but we have provided a basis for additional larger studies to be undertaken,” Dr. Schwenk added.
