June 04, 2023

Study: Medical cannabis associated with improving health-related quality of life

A new Australian study published Tuesday appears to support past findings that medical cannabis treatment improves the quality of life among patients with a wide range of health conditions.

The results of the study, led by Thomas R. Arkell, of the Center for Human Psychopharmacology at Swinburne University of Technology in Hawthorn, Australia, were posted on JAMA Open Network.

The findings came from a case series of 3,148 patients, many of whom showed significant improvements over all eight conditions listed on a short health survey.

The survey assessed health-related quality of life issues when subjects started treatment with medical cannabis, and it found that improvements were largely sustained over time.

"This study suggests a favorable association between medical cannabis treatment and quality of life among patients with a diverse range of conditions," the authors said in the study. "However, clinical evidence for cannabinoid efficacy remains limited, and further high-quality trials are required.

Although the study suggested a positive correlation with the use of medical cannabis, authors said they could not rule out the possibility that adverse events may have been caused in whole or part by the disease state and concomitant medications.

"The relatively high incidence of adverse events still affirms the need for caution with THC prescribing and careful identification of patients with contraindications," the authors said.

They said that 53.6% of the participants were female,30.2% were employed and the group had a mean age of 55.9. Most of the participants (68.6%) reported chronic non-cancer pain was the most common indication for treatment, followed by cancer pain (6.0%), insomnia (4.8%) and anxiety (4.2%).

Most of the cannabis prescriptions were for orally administered products, including oils and capsules.

"CBD-dominant products were associated with [the] largest improvements on the role-physical domain, while THC-dominant products were associated with largest improvements on the physical functioning domain," the authors said.

The authors noted, though, that the study was limited by the use of a retrospective case series design without a control group, which restricted what conclusions could be drawn around treatment efficacy.

"Given the ongoing increase in medical cannabis prescribing, other clinics should strongly consider implementing a similarly rigorous clinical data collection protocol in order to monitor clinical safety and patient-reported outcomes associated with medical cannabis use," the authors said.

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