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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Addictive Disorders
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1552084
This article is part of the Research TopicEmerging Treatment Approaches for Substance Use DisordersView all 6 articles
Ketamine in Treating Opioid Use Disorder and Opioid Withdrawal : A Scoping Review
Provisionally accepted- Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
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Introduction: Opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to be a public health crisis in the United States, with mortality having doubled over the last twenty years, leading to significant economic cost, morbidity, and mortality. This has caused significant demand for novel therapeutics. Preliminary evidence demonstrates that ketamine may be helpful in treating OUD as well as serve as an adjunct during treatment of opioid withdrawal (OW).We conducted a scoping review of two databases (PubMed and PsycINFO) for English language, peer-reviewed manuscripts reporting on use of ketamine in treatment of OUD or OW in humans, excluding protocols and reviews. The study was conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines.The search yielded 998 studies. After duplicates were removed, 715 studies underwent title and abstract screening for inclusion in the review. Of those, 21 were further considered under full text review. Three studies were excluded due to wrong study design and ten were excluded due to the wrong indication, specifically the use of ketamine for treatment of pain rather than substance use disorder or withdrawal. Eight studies were included in the review, regarding treatment for OUD (n=2) and OW (n=6). In OUD, ketamine administration was helpful in reducing opioid cravings and opioid use. In OW, ketamine attenuated precipitated withdrawal symptoms and was used in several case series/studies as an adjunct to buprenorphine treatment.In summary, this review presents a baseline of literature supporting the use of ketamine in OUD and OW. However, more research is needed before widespread use.
Keywords: ketamine1, opioid use disorder2, opioid withdrawal3, NMDA antagonist4, substance use5
Received: 27 Dec 2024; Accepted: 08 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shen, Campbell, Kopczynski, Maddams, Rosenblum, Nigam and Suzuki. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Joji Suzuki, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.