A new Australian led study will investigate whether the perioperative use of ketamine could be a solution to the invisible but significant problem of chronic pain following thoracic, abdominal, orthopedic and other surgery.
The randomised controlled trial of ketamine versus placebo will commence recruitment this year following an award of $4.8 million in NHMRC funding.
Associate Professor Philip Peyton, from the Anaesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine Unit at the University of Melbourne, said they would aim to recruit 5,000 participants across Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong.
“The NHMRC review panel clearly recognises the magnitude and importance of this long-term pain problem.”
“Evidence from some small trials is encouraging but we need the big, multicentre study to demonstrate the treatment effect on a large scale.”
Associate Professor Peyton said about one in eight people had significant ongoing pain after surgery, the costs were substantial and public waiting lists for pain management were huge.
“Tens of thousands of Australians are affected given we perform about 250,000 operations each year,” he told the limbic.
A 2007 Access Economics report found chronic pain cost the community about $34 billion per year including health system costs and productivity losses.