Breast cancer patients use cannabinoid medicine alongside conventional treatments
Date of publication: February 8, 2023
Author: María Gala Meléndez
Under the direction of oncologist Marisa C. Weiss, the BreastCancer.org Foundation supported research that found that nearly half (42%) of U.S. breast cancer patients use cannabis. However, most of them do not report their use to their doctors. These findings were published in the journal CANCER.
The results of the study showed that among the participants there is a great interest in the medicinal use of the plant. Nearly half reported having used it to treat ailments such as pain, insomnia, anxiety, stress and nausea/vomiting . According to the information recovered, it is known that they resorted to a wide range of products that, in their opinion, were natural and safe.
Other data to be taken into account
Previous studies have investigated the percentage of cancer patients using cannabis in individual treatment centers and have reported a wide range (16%-56%).
In 2017, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report on the health effects of cannabis. The specialists in charge found substantial support for the use of THC-containing products for chronic pain (including cancer and neuropathic pain), chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
These THC products included homemade extracts of the cannabis plant, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs, dronabinol (synthetic THC) and nabilone (synthetic THC analogue).
THC alleviates sleep problems by improving sleep quality and rest in patients with sleep apnea, chronic non-cancer pain, and multiple sclerosis. It has also been shown to reduce anxiety in patients with chronic non-cancer pain, Tourette's disorder and multiple sclerosis; however, in these studies, anxiety was a secondary endpoint.
As for CBD, it has been shown to ameliorate chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain in rodents. Concrete data on the response in humans are not yet available. The effect of CBD on sleep is largely unknown.
Among the few approaches is a study that indicated that 160 mg of CBD helped with insomnia. Currently, the only medical indication for CBD is childhood epilepsy. For infants suffering from this condition, Epidiolex, an FDA-approved CBD extract of the plant, is prescribed.
References
Weiss, M. C., Hibbs, J. E., Buckley, M. E., Danese, S. R., Leitenberger, A., Bollmann-Jenkins, M., Meske, S. W., Aliano-Ruiz, K. E., McHugh, T. W., Larson, S. L., Le, E. H., Green, N. L., Gilman, P. B., Kaklamani, V. G., Chlebowski, R. T., & Martinez, D. M. (2021). A Coala-T-Cannabis Survey Study of breast cancer patients' use of cannabis before, during, and after treatment. Cancer, 0, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1002/CNCR.33906
