Is intravenous ketamine effective for postoperative pain management in adults?

Ketamine is a N-Metil-D-Aspartate receptor antagonist that has been used as adjuvant in the acute postoperative pain management because of its analgesic properties. However, its role is not clearly determined. To answer this question, we searched in Epistemonikos database, which is maintained by screening multiple information sources. We identified 19 systematic reviews including 226 randomized trials overall. We extracted data and generated a summary of findings table using the GRADE approach. We concluded intravenous ketamine probably has little or no effect in reducing postoperative pain.