Cannabis Provides Sustained Relief For Cancer-Related Pain In UK Study
Cancer is one of the worst things that can ever happen to a person. Anyone who has survived a battle with cancer or had a friend or family battle cancer knows that unfortunate fact firsthand.
According to estimates from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, “in 2022, there were an estimated 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million deaths” and “about 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime, approximately 1 in 9 men and 1 in 12 women die from the disease.”
One of the ongoing symptoms of cancer is chronic pain. A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom found that cannabis therapies may offer sustained relief for cancer-related pain. Below is more information about the study and its findings via a news release from NORML:
London, United Kingdom: Cancer patients report less pain and improved sleep following their use of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs), according to observational data published in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy.
British researchers assessed the use of botanical cannabis or oil extracts in 168 cancer patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. (British specialists are permitted to prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products to patients unresponsive to conventional medications.) Researchers assessed changes in patient-reported outcomes at one, three, and six months.
Patients’ use of cannabis products was “associated with improvements in all pain-specific PROMs [patient-reported outcome measures] at all follow-up periods,” investigators reported. Study participants also reported improved sleep and less anxiety. No significant adverse effects from cannabis were reported.
The study’s authors concluded: “Initiation of CBMPs is associated with improvements in pain-specific and general health-related quality of life outcomes in CP [cancer pain] patients over six months, with a relatively low incidence of mild-to-moderate AEs [adverse events] and no life-threatening AEs. … RCTs [randomized controlled trials] and longer observational case series are warranted, but this study can help inform their rollout, serving as a valuable pharmacovigilance tool for the use of CBMPs in CP, either as an alternative therapeutic option or as one part of multimodal treatment.”
Other observational studies assessing the use of cannabis products among patients enrolled in the UK Cannabis Registry have reported them to be effective for those diagnosed with anxiety, fibromyalgia, inflammatory bowel disease, post-traumatic stress, depression, migraine, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, and inflammatory arthritis, among other conditions.
Full text of the study, “UK Medical Cannabis Registry: An analysis of clinical outcomes of medicinal cannabis therapy for cancer pain,” appears in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy.