Cannabis studies – especially related to cancer treatment – are often criticized by opponents of MC for having small numbers of patients for short periods. Here’s one involving nearly 3,000 patients over six month treatment periods with data gathered over 2015-17…
Note that the study was published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, AND published online by the U.S. National Institute of Health, so we consider it authoritatively sourced, and it’s based on human, not animal subjects, who were all quite to gravely ill.
“…researchers ‘analyzed the data routinely collected as part of the treatment program of 2970 cancer patients treated with medical cannabis between 2015 and 2017.’ Among the patients, the ‘average age was 59.5 ± 16.3 years, 54.6% women and 26.7% of the patients reported previous experience with cannabis.’
The most frequent types of cancer were: ‘breast (20.7%), lung (13.6%), pancreatic (8.1%) and colorectal (7.9%) with 51.2% being at stage 4. “The main symptoms requiring therapy were: ‘sleep problems (78.4%), pain (77.7%, median intensity 8/10), weakness (72.7%), nausea (64.6%) and lack of appetite (48.9%).’
After six months of follow up, ‘902 patients (24.9%) died and 682 (18.8%) stopped the treatment. Of the remaining, 1211 (60.6%) responded; 95.9% reported an improvement in their condition, 45 patients (3.7%) reported no change and four patients (0.3%) reported deterioration in their medical condition’.
The study concludes by stating that ‘Cannabis as a palliative treatment for cancer patients seems to be well tolerated, effective and safe option to help patients cope with the malignancy related symptoms’.”
We’re struck that 95.9% of those who completed the protocol reported an improvement. That’s pretty unambiguous….! And not a result we’ve seen in the literature for opioids and other palliative treatments.
Here’s a link to the original study’s abstract: http://ift.tt/2I1Pcwp
#MMJ #Research #Cancer #Palliative #UTpol #PatientsBeforePolitics #TRUCE
See full article – Study: Cannabis is a Safe, Effective Palliative Treatment for Cancer Patients – TheJointBlog
