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Cannabis products, in the form of the plant’s flowers, isolated cannabinoids, or synthetic cannabinoid preparations, are increasingly used as medicine, especially with the intention of treating cancer-related ills. But there is a serious dearth of rigorous data to support many of these indications.
There is no randomized controlled evidence for the effect of any cannabinoid (the active chemicals in medicinal cannabis) on cancer-related pain. Indeed, there is evidence that a product containing an equal ratio of cannabidiol (CBD) to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana, does not reduce cancer-related pain compared with placebo, and that the CBD:THC combo treatment could lead to more side effects.
We could detect no difference between cannabinoids and placebo in reducing pain scores across five high-quality studies.
To take the next step in strengthening the evidence clinicians use to support their practice, we and our collaborators recently published a systematic ...
