Ketamine for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain: A Review of Clinical Effectiveness, Cost-Effectiveness, and Guidelines [Internet]
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Canada, about one in five adults older than 18 years of age live with chronic pain. Pain can be sub-defined by three main biological mechanisms: 1) Nociceptive pain (from damage to body tissue, as in injury, disease or inflammation); 2) Neuropathic pain (from direct damage of the nervous system); and 3) Nociplastic pain (from a change in sensory neurons function). Chronic pain is associated with significant emotional distress, like anxiety, anger, frustration and depression, and is recognized by the World Health Organization as a disease by itself listed in the International Classification of Disease version 11. Treatment and management of chronic pain are complex and difficult, involving multiple interventions, including pharmacological and psychological interventions. Pharmacological interventions considered for chronic pain include nonopioid analgesics (e.g., nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, acetaminophen), antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs, other adjuvant medications (e.g., topical agents, cannabis and cannabinoids), opioid, and infusion therapies (e.g., ketamine, lidocaine).Ketamine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, has been approved and primarily used as an anesthetic induction agent in doses ranging between 1 and 4.5 mg/kg. As it also interacts with other receptors, ketamine has been explored for other indications such as depressive disorders, suicidal ideation, substance-use disorders, anxiety disorders, refractory status epilepticus, bronchial asthma exacerbations, and pain management. In hospital and emergency department, ketamine has been used for pain management of acute conditions such as burns, trauma, or post-operative pain. Recently, intravenous (IV) ketamine infusions has been increasingly used as a treatment option for acute pain as well as chronic non-cancer pain such as complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), neuropathic pain, and other refractory chronic pain conditions. Despite potential opportunities of ketamine for numerous indications, the use of ketamine is known to be associated with psychotomimetic effects such as euphoria, dysphoria, psychomotor retardation, hallucinations, vivid dreams, and nightmares, as common side effects. Given the availability of ketamine of different formulations and its potential opportunities in pain management, there is a need to determine its benefits and risks in the treatment of chronic pain.The aim of this report is to review the evidence regarding the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ketamine for treating chronic non-cancer pain in adults. This report also aims to review the evidence-based guidelines regarding the use of ketamine for chronic non-cancer pain.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.011 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.006 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.007 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".