• Naveen Poonai, Kyle Canton, Samina Ali, Shawn Hendrikx, Amit Shah, Michael Miller, Gary Joubert, Michael Rieder, and Lisa Hartling.
• Department of Pediatrics, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, London, Ontario, Canada.
• Plos One. 2017 Jan 1; 12 (3): e0173253.

BackgroundKetamine is commonly used for procedural sedation and analgesia (PSA) in children. Evidence suggests it can be administered intranasally (IN). We sought to review the evidence for IN ketamine for PSA in children.MethodsWe performed a systematic review of randomized trials of IN ketamine in PSA that reported any sedation-related outcome in children 0 to 19 years. Trials were identified through electronic searches of MEDLINE (1946-2016), EMBASE (1947-2016), Google Scholar (2016), CINAHL (1981-2016), The Cochrane Library (2016), Web of Science (2016), Scopus (2016), clinical trial registries, and conference proceedings (2000-2016) without language restrictions. The methodological qualities of studies and the overall quality of evidence were evaluated using the Cochrane Collaboration's Risk of Bias tool, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system, respectively.ResultsThe review included 7 studies (n = 264) of children ranging from 0 to 14 years. Heterogeneity in study design precluded meta-analysis. Most studies were associated with a low or unclear risk of bias and outcome-specific ratings for quality of evidence were low or very low. In four of seven studies, IN ketamine provided superior sedation to comparators and resulted in adequate sedation for 148/175 (85%) of participants. Vomiting was the most common adverse effect; reported by 9/91 (10%) of participants.ConclusionsIN ketamine administration is well tolerated and without serious adverse effects. Although most participants were deemed adequately sedated with IN ketamine, effectiveness of sedation with respect to superiority over comparators was inconsistent, precluding a recommendation for PSA in children.

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