Ketamine may be related to minor troponin elevations in children undergoing minor procedures in the ED

Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic agent that has an increased frequency of usage in the last years particularly in emergency departments. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether ketamine is related to myocardial injury in children undergoing minor procedures.

Children younger than 18 years undergoing procedural sedation secondary to minor trauma composed the study population. Patients were administered ketamine with a dose of 1.5 mg/kg via intravenous route. QT interval was measured by Bazett's formula, and QT dispersion was determined by taking the average of 3 different QT intervals. High-sensitive troponin levels were measured before and 3 hours after the ketamine administration.

A total of 30 patients were included into the study. Study subjects had a median age of 2 years (interquartile range, 1-4 years). There were 2 patients among the study patients who had troponin elevations 3 hours after the ketamine administrations. High-sensitive troponin levels of these 2 at the time of preketamine, 3, 5, and 24 hours after the ketamine administration were as follows: 5, 29, 15, and 5 ng/L and 3, 44, 41, and 4 ng/L, respectively. There was no difference before and after the ketamine administration for the corrected QT intervals and QT dispersions.

Ketamine may be related to minor troponin elevations in children undergoing procedural sedation without a permanent cardiac dysfunction.