European journal of pain : EJP
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Population pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling of ketamine-induced pain relief of chronic pain.
Pharmacological treatment of chronic (neuropathic) pain is often disappointing. In order to enhance our insight in the complex interaction between analgesic drug and chronic pain relief, we performed a pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic (PK-PD) modeling study on the effect of S(+)-ketamine on pain scores in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome type 1 (CRPS-1) patients. ⋯ Long-term S(+)-ketamine treatment is effective in causing pain relief in CRPS-1 patients with analgesia outlasting the treatment period by 50 days. These data suggest that ketamine initiated a cascade of events, including desensitization of excitatory receptor systems in the central nervous system, which persisted but slowly abated when ketamine molecules were no longer present.