Ketamine may be useful for treating depression, British study finds

The party drug ketamine could one day be used to help some people suffering from severe depression, according to British scientists who gave infusions of the narcotic nicknamed "Special K" to patients.

Researchers who tested the drug on 28 people with major depressive disorder found ketamine quickly helped relieve the condition for some - and made a number of them completely well again for up to several weeks.

"It's dramatic and it's exciting, and it is a novel mechanism. But it's not about to become a routine treatment," Rupert McShane, a consultant psychiatrist and researcher at Oxford University who led the study, told reporters.

He said the discovery that ketamine worked, even for a short period, had been enough to give new hope to some of the patients in the study, many of whom had in the past considered suicide.

"We've seen remarkable changes in people who've had severe depression for many years that no other treatment has touched," McShane said. "It's very moving to witness."

Although many of them relapsed within a day or two, almost a third of them felt a benefit which lasted at least three weeks, he said, and 15 per cent did not relapse for more than two months.

"We now need to build up clinical experience with ketamine in a small number of carefully monitored patients," McShane said.