A recent observational study published in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy suggests that patients with fibromyalgia (FM) experience significant symptom improvement when using cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs).
Conducted by researchers from Imperial College London and Kings College London, the study followed 148 patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry who used either cannabis flower or oil extracts.
“A cohort study of fibromyalgia patients treated with oils (Adven®, Curaleaf International, UK), dried flower (Adven®, Curaleaf International, UK) or both cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) was performed”, states the study. “Primary outcomes were changes from baseline at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months in validated patient-reported outcome measures.”
Secondary outcomes included descriptive analysis of adverse events.
“One hundred and forty-eight participants were treated with oils (n = 77; 52.03%), dried flower (n = 14; 9.46%) or both (n = 57; 38.51%).
“Improvements in the generalized anxiety disorder-7 questionnaire, single-item sleep quality scale, fibromyalgia symptom severity score and EQ-5D-5L Index values were observed at each follow up period compared to baseline (p < 0.050)”, found the study’s researchers. “Improvements were observed across all primary outcomes with no differences observed across different formulations of CBMPs.”
Adverse events were reported by one-quarter of participants and were more likely to reported by cannabis naïve patients.
“This present work through focusing on a homogeneous group of CBMPs can help inform randomized controlled trials after observing signals of improvement associated with a specific cultivar of CBMPs”, states the study.
Researchers concude the study by stating:
To conclude, in a cohort of 148 fibromyalgia patients receiving CBMP treatment, a potential association between initiation of CBMPs and positive therapeutic benefit for fibromyalgia patients measured by HRQoL changes and subjective impressions of disease burden was observed, with an appropriate adverse event profile. This study aimed to provide further clinical data of CBMP therapy outcomes as alternative pharmacological management for fibromyalgia patients, needed given the lack of efficacy of current treatments. This study provides signals of improvement for these patients, which support further evaluation of Adven® CBMPs (Curaleaf International, UK) with randomized controlled trials for fibromyalgia. However, given the limitations of the study and the lack of ability to infer any causal relationships it is not possible to definitively conclude the effect of CBMPs on fibromyalgia.
You can find the full text of the study by clicking here.
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