Efficacy of Low-dose Ketamine for Control of Acute Pain in the Emergency Setting: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials

Introduction: Ketamine can be particularly helpful in situations where the clinician is not able to administer opioids and require an alternate analgesic, such as for patients who are already on high-dose opioids, have a history of addiction, or for opioid-na ïve children and adults. In this review, our goal was to obtain a comprehensive estimate of the efficacy and safety of low-dose ketamine (dose less than 0.5 milligrams per kilogram or equivalent) compared to opiates for the control of acute pain in the emergency setting.Methods: We conducted systematic searches in PubMed Central, EMBASE, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar from inception until November 2021. We used the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool to assess the quality of included studies.Results: We carried out a meta-analysis with a random-effects model and reported pooled standardized mean difference (SMD) and risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals depending on the type...
Source: Western Journal of Emergency Medicine - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Source Type: research