Trial reportAnesthesiology2025
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Intraoperative Ketamine for Acute Postsurgical Pain after Breast Cancer Surgery: The Moderating Effect of Baseline Temporal Summation of Pain.
Trial report in Anesthesiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Increasing dose of esketamine for supplemental analgesia after complex spinal fusion surgery: a randomized and double-blind trial.BMC anesthesiology · 2026Trial
- Pre-surgical quantitative sensory testing and post-surgical pain among adolescents undergoing spinal fusion surgery: A longitudinal cohort study.The journal of pain · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundActivation of nociceptive pathways by surgical trauma can induce central sensitization, which is associated with greater pain severity and persistence. The N -methyl- d -aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine blocks central sensitization but has a variable track record for preventing postsurgical pain. Patient-level factors contribute to variability in pain and may serve as markers of differential efficacy of preventive effect.
methodsThis prospective, longitudinal randomized controlled trial investigated the effectiveness of intraoperatively administered ketamine to decrease postoperative pain after breast surgery. Before surgery, patients reported demographic and medical information and completed validated pain and psychosocial questionnaires. A subset of patients also underwent quantitative sensory testing to assess baseline temporal summation of pain (central sensitization tendency). Analyses of covariance, controlling for relevant pre- and perioperative factors, examined treatment group (ketamine vs . saline) differences in 2-week postoperative pain outcomes. Exploratory moderation analysis explored whether the efficacy of ketamine differed based on patients' baseline temporal summation of pain.
resultsOf the sample of 225 patients, 113 received ketamine, and 112 received placebo. The majority of patients underwent lumpectomy (53%), with 16% undergoing mastectomy and 30% mastectomy with reconstruction. There were no significant treatment group differences in pain severity or impact reported 2 weeks after surgery. However, moderation analysis revealed that among patients with higher baseline temporal summation of pain, ketamine was associated with lower pain severity and impact scores.
conclusionsKetamine was not associated with an analgesic benefit over placebo in the acute postoperative period, as measured using a variety of pain assessments. However, exploratory moderation analysis suggested that patients with evidence of a greater central sensitization at baseline may derive an analgesic effect of ketamine. These findings support future collection of baseline phenotypic patient characteristics related to relevant mechanisms in trials to identify which patients may derive a larger benefit from analgesic interventions.
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