Home Anesthesiology Ketamine Not Linked to PTSD in Military Trauma Setting

Ketamine Not Linked to PTSD in Military Trauma Setting

Only acute stress disorder, total number of surgeries linked to PTSD development in multivariable analysis

TUESDAY, Oct. 17, 2017 (HealthDay News) — Ketamine administration is not associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the military trauma setting, according to a study published online Oct. 3 in Anaesthesia.

Georges Mion, M.D., from Cochin Hospital in France, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study using data from the French Military Health Service for 274 soldiers who survived a war injury in Afghanistan (2010-2012) to examine the correlation between ketamine and PTSD.

The researchers found that 36 percent of the soldiers suffered from PTSD and 32 percent had received ketamine. Fifty-five and 20 percent of patients in the PTSD group and the no-PTSD group, respectively, had received ketamine. The median injury severity score was 5 for injured soldiers who received ketamine compared with 3 among the soldiers who did not receive ketamine. Only acute stress disorder and total number of surgical procedures were correlated independently with development of PTSD in a multivariable analysis.

“In this retrospective study, ketamine administration was not a risk factor for the development of post-traumatic stress disorder in the military trauma setting,” the authors write.

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