“This has been described in the literature going back to the Civil War,” Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman said. “It was called ‘Soldier's Heart’ because one of the features of PTSD was a rapid heartbeat.
Dr. Elias Dakwar sought proof of the suggestion that concentrated doses of ketamine may help reduce vulnerabilities associated with cocaine use, and improve the likelihood of relapse prevention.
“As we treat more people with ketamine, an unfortunate side effect of that is more exposure, which means that we're going to create more ketamine addicts,” said Dr. Drew Ramsey.
Dr. J. John Mann says while there are clear short-term benefits to ketamine, its long-term effects, its abuse potential and the optimal number of treatments a patient should receive are still unknown.
Columbia Psychiatrists suggest that researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and the FDA reconsider placebo-controlled, relapse prevention studies in schizophrenia.
Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman and colleagues conclude that the time has come to cease the use of placebo in relapse prevention studies and encourage the use of active comparators.
“The effectiveness of combinations of antipsychotic medications remains unclear; reviews of this treatment strategy agree on the need for further investigation,” Dr. T. Scott Stroup and team wrote.