Adjunctive continuous ketamine infusion to conventional sedation in mechanically ventilated patients: It is time for a randomized trial

Abstract

Managing sedative and analgesic medications is an essential part of critical care medicine. There is a shift toward favoring the use of nonbenzodiazepine agents because of their side effects. There is an increasing interest in using ketamine as an analgo-sedative in the intensive care unit because of its unique pharmacologic properties. A comprehensive literature search was performed to capture all the studies involving ketamine use in critical care. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases. We also extracted the references from major review articles and recent guidelines. In this review, we present the most up-to-date studies done on this topic. We also present the proposal for a future multicenter randomized trial through the Saudi Critical Care Trials Group.