ECT vs ketamine for major depressive disorder: New data

This interesting Medscape Psychiatry article reports on the recent study published in JAMA Psychiatry. The author writes: "Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) appears to have a small advantage over ketamine for improving depressive symptoms in adults with a major depressive episode, results of a new review show.  "Although ECT is superior to ketamine for patients with a major depressive episode (MDE), our findings suggest that the therapeutic advantage may be smaller than what was demonstrated in prior analyses," first author Vikas Menon ... told Medscape Medical News.  "This supports a recommendation for a trial of ketamine before a trial of ECT for patients with MDE, though this recommendation is limited by the small size and number of existing trials," Menon said."

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