Cardiovascular Safety After Continuous Ketamine Infusion

Cardiovascular and Neuropsychiatric Side Effects in Ketamine Analgesic Infusions in Acute Pain

Observational study that evaluate the cardiovascular and neuropsychiatric side effects of ketamine analgesic infusions for acute pain

Severe acute pain and opioid tolerance is an important symptom in patients after surgery.

Ketamine in analgesic infusion has been described to decrease acute pain, in patients with opioid tolerance. Ketamine use has been associated with side effects, which are doses dependant. Those side effects are mainly cardiovascular: Hypertension, tachycardia, and neuropsychiatric: delirium, hallucinations,nightmares that potentially compromise recovery of patients.

Objective:

To determine retrospectively in data bases the frequency of tachycardia, hypertension, delirium, hallucinations and nightmares, in adult patients that received ketamine infusions before and after administration of this drug in the first 48 hours to treat acute and postoperative pain

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients older than 18 years old
• Acute and Postoperative pain
• Ketamine infusion at 0.15 mg/kg/h or below

Exclusion Criteria:

• Cognitive disfunction psychiatric illness
• Acute cardiovascular disease
• Anemia with Hb less than 7 g/dl
• Decompensated hyperthyroidism
• Low cardiac output
• Incomplete medical history