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BACKGROUND:

IV ketamine is widely used to treat patients with chronic pain, yet the long-term impact remains uncertain. We synthesized evidence from randomized control trials to investigate the effectiveness of IV ketamine infusions for pain relief in chronic conditions and to determine whether any pain classifications or treatment regimens are associated with greater benefit.

METHODS:

We searched Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar, as well as the clinicaltrials. gov website from inception through December 16, 2017 for randomized control trials comparing IV ketamine to placebo infusions for chronic pain that reported outcomes for≥ 48 hours after the intervention. Three authors independently screened the studies, pooled the data, and appraised risk of bias. Random-effects model was used to calculate weighted mean differences for pain scores and secondary outcomes. Our primary outcome was the lowest …