Read more: Ketamine: No clear benefit for chronic pain
Ketamine: No clear benefit for chronic pain
November 12, 2025
Ketamine is regularly used for the treatment of chronic pain, but a new Cochrane review report has found there is no clear evidence of its benefit for this off-label use.
Ketamine is an anaesthetic commonly used to sedate people for medical procedures and for short-term pain relief. Ketamine is also frequently given off-label to manage chronic pain conditions such as nerve pain, fibromyalgia and complex regional pain syndrome.
It is one of several N‑methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonists — a group of drugs thought to reduce pain by blocking certain brain receptors involved in pain signalling.
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