Comparison of Ketamine Combine Propofol vs Propofol Anesthesia in Schizophrenia Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) serves as an effective adjuvant or alternative modality for major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, or bipolar affective disorder refractory to or contraindicated to psychopharmacological treatment. Anesthetics have been introduced into ECT sessions to alleviate ECT-inducing discomfort sensation, tachycardia, arrhythmia, hypertension, and anxiety.

Propofol is highly lipid soluble and able to rapidly cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which leads to rapid onset of sedation and hypnosis. Meanwhile, propofol has hemodynamic depressant effect and attenuates hypertensive surge during ECT. Characteristics mentioned above make propofol one of widely used anesthetics for anesthetized ECT. However, propofol is also well known for anticonvulsant property, which may inevitably interfere with seizure propagation by electroconvulsive stimulus and diminish consequent efficacy. Thus, dosage of electrical stimulus may be increased to achieve ideal seizure quality in this setting, which also leads to higher risk of subsequent cognitive impairment or other complications.

Ketamine has also been widely used in the induction of anesthesia for the treatment of major depressive disease in recent years. It has been found to increase the permeability and therapeutic effect of antidepressants. Compared to traditional Barbiturate drugs or propofol, do not increase the threshold of electricity required by electroporation, which can reduce the time required for symptom relief of those drugs, It is a viable alternative induction drug. However, ketamine causes short-term dissociative symptoms, which may temporarily aggravate the positive symptoms of patients with schizophrenia after Electroconvulsive therapy, but the time of aggravation of positive symptoms generally does not exceed 30 minutes.

There have been many studies in the clinic, and it has been confirmed that ketamine combine propofol can be used for electroconvulsive treatment in patients with major depression and bipolar disorder, and even better Electroconvulsive quality can be obtained. Reduce the number of Electroconvulsive treatments and reduce the duration of treatment. However, the current literature has not yet verified the clinical benefit of ketamine combine propofol as an anesthetic induction drug in patients with schizophrenia who are receiving electroconvulsive therapy, and it is worthy of further study.

In the investigator's clinical practice, the purpose of this experiment is to explore: compared with propofol base anesthesia alone, and the combine use of ketamine and propofol may reduce the threshold of seizure, improve the quality of Electroconvulsive therapy and shorten the course of treatment. The combine use and titrate the drugs helps to reduce the side effects of both ketamine and propofol (such as cardiovascular side effects and positive symptoms) , achieve better Electroconvulsive therapy and effects.