” Traditionally, cancer-related pain is generally treated by opioid analgesics, but a lot of oncologists perceive opioid treatment as hazardous, so alternative therapies are needed,” explained author David Meiri, assistant teacher at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.
” Our research study is the first to examine the possible benefits of medical marijuana for cancer-related pain in oncology patients; collecting info from the start of treatment, and with duplicated follow-ups for a prolonged period of time, to get a comprehensive analysis of its efficiency.”
Need for alternative treatment
After speaking with several cancer patients, who were looking for alternative choices for pain and symptom relief, the researchers were eager to thoroughly check the prospective benefits of medicinal cannabis.
” We experienced various cancer patients who asked us whether medical marijuana treatment can benefit their health,” said co-author Gil Bar-Sela, associate teacher at the HaEmek Medical Center Afula. “Our initial evaluation of existing research exposed that actually very little was known regarding its effectiveness, especially for the treatment of cancer-related discomfort, and of what was understood, most findings were inconclusive.”
The scientists hired licensed oncologists who were able to provide medical marijuana licenses to their cancer patients. These oncologists referred interested patients to the research study and reported on their illness attributes.
” Patients finished anonymous surveys prior to beginning treatment, and once again at a number of time points during the following 6 months. We collected data on a number of elements, consisting of pain measures, analgesics intake, cancer sign concern, sexual problems, and adverse effects,” said Bar-Sela.
Improved symptoms
An analysis of the information revealed that many of the result determines improved, with less discomfort and cancer symptoms. Notably, using opioid and other discomfort analgesics lowered. Almost half of the clients studied stopped all analgesic medications following six months of medicinal cannabis treatment.
” Medical marijuana has been suggested as a possible treatment for hunger loss, however, most patients in this research study still reduced weight. As a significant part were identified with progressive cancer, a weight decline is expected with illness progression,” reported Meiri.
He continued: “Interestingly, we discovered that sexual function enhanced for a lot of guys but intensified for a lot of women.”
Meiri would like future research studies to dig deeper and take a look at the effectiveness of medical cannabis in various groups of cancer clients.
” Although our research study was extremely extensive and presented extra point of views on medical cannabis, the sex, age, and ethnic background, as well as cancer types and the stage of the cancer indicated the variety of patients in our study was wide-ranging. Future research studies need to investigate the level of efficiency of medicinal cannabis in particular subgroups of cancer clients with more shared qualities.”
Reference: 20 May 2022, Frontiers in Pain Research.DOI: 10.3389/ fpain.2022.861037.
A new research study discovers that medicinal cannabis reduces cancer-related discomfort and the requirement for opiate-based painkillers.
Medical cannabis decreases cancer-related discomfort and the need for opiate-based pain relievers, reveals a brand-new thorough study of its use by oncology patients.
A thorough assessment of the advantages of medical cannabis for cancer-related pain discovered that for the majority of oncology clients, pain measures enhanced substantially, other cancer-related symptoms also decreased, the intake of pain relievers was decreased, and the adverse effects were minimal. Published in Frontiers in Pain Research, these findings recommend that medicinal marijuana can be carefully considered as an option to the pain relief medications that are typically recommended to cancer clients.
Discomfort, together with stress and anxiety, depression, and insomnia, are some of the most fundamental reasons for oncology clients impairment and suffering while undergoing treatment therapies, and may even cause worsened prognosis.