The “gold standard” maiden trial study for Ketamine’s anti-depressant effects are officially underway.

Launching yesterday, the trial will involve seven research institutions and 200 patients from across Australia and New Zealand. This is huge.

Though there has been several pilot studies on ketamine being used to treat depression in the past, this recent news confirms that the first long terms human trials are underway, and it is both exciting and a bit scary.

As reported by The Guardian, “The randomised double-blind trial – the gold standard for clinical research – means neither the researchers nor patients know whether they will be receiving ketamine or a placebo. The trial will run for three years.”

Speaking on the new trials, Professor Colleen Loo of the University of New South Wales and the Black Dog institute says “Existing studies show that if you give a single dose of ketamine to people with serious clinical depression, they do tend to get better – but that only lasts for a few days.”

“Feeling better for a few days is no good with a chronic disease like depression.”

Professor Loo – who is one of the study’s leaders and has been researching the use of ketamine for depression for half a decade – added “What we now need to do is establish whether it can be used as an effective ongoing clinical treatment and, if so, who best responds to the treatment and what the treatment guidelines might be. It is not good enough to say that just because it has made people feel better in previous trials, when given one dose, that it is a safe and effective treatment long term.”

“We will be very carefully monitoring people under a predefined treatment protocol.”

So even though it looks like this could happen in the future, there are quite a few hurdles that need to be jumped during trial period.

The trials will span over three years, and will be undertaken at these University’s and research centres:

-University of NSW

-University of Otago in New Zealand

-Sir Charles Gairdner hospital in Perth

-South Eastern Private hospital

-Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre in Victoria

-The Brain and Mind Centre and Royal Prince Alfred hospital in Sydney

-The University of Adelaide and the Royal Adelaide hospital

For NSW based patients interested in partaking in the trial who have not seen results with other treatments, please contact [email protected].

(Image and Article source via The Guardian)