The first placebo-controlled study of ketamine’s effect on social anxiety disorder has provides more evidence that the anesthetic could be helpful in severe cases.
“Many patients with anxiety continue to have impairing symptoms despite the first-line talk therapy (cognitive behavioral therapy) and first-line medications (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors),” said study authors Jerome H. Taylor of the University of Pennsylvania and Michael H. Bloch of Yale University.
“Therefore, our research group thought it was important to find potential new treatments for anxiety. We chose to investigate ketamine because several studies have found it to be helpful for anxiety symptoms in treatment-resistant depression.”
A previous study on 12 adults with general anxiety disorder or social anxiety disorder, which was published in 2017, found that ketamine reduced their symptoms. But this study was not placebo-controlled.
The new double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested the effects of intravenous ketamine on 18 adults with social anxiety disorder. Ketamine alleviated symptoms of social anxiety as measured by the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale but not as measured by the self-reported Visual Analogue Scale for Anxiety.