Stability of ketamine in human biological samples: effect of temperature

Ketamine is a NMDA receptor antagonist used since 1970 for the induction of anesthesia. It has a rapid onset and short duration of action, so it is a preferred agent for short-term surgical procedures. Little has been reported about the stability of ketamine and its metabolites in human blood samples. To date, no effective data on the stability of ketamine is available, so we proposed to investigate the stability of these compounds in human blood samples under different storage conditions. We studied the stability of ketamine in human serum stored at “20°C and at 4°C. The stability of these compounds in human blood stored at 4 and 20°C was also examined. Comparison graphs for the three temperatures were taken and Mean Whitney test was applied for the samples to determine the effectiveness of the experiment.