A new study published by the journal Brain and Behavior, and published online by the National Library of Medicine, found that cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) may improve quality of life for individuals with treatment-resistant epilepsy.
The study, conducted by researchers at Imperial College London and Kings College London, analyzed data from 134 patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. Researchers tracked patient-reported outcomes over a six-month period, focusing on epilepsy-specific and general health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures.
Improvements were observed at one, three, and six months across all metrics, including the Quality of Life in Epilepsy-31 (QOLIE-31), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Single-Item Sleep Quality Score (SQS), and EQ-5D-5L. Nearly 30% of participants reported a clinically meaningful improvement in epilepsy-specific quality of life by the six-month mark.
Only five patients (3.73%) experienced adverse events, which were generally mild or moderate in nature. Researchers noted that the low incidence of side effects could be partially attributed to the fact that two-thirds of participants were not cannabis naïve at the start of treatment.
“Initiation of CBMPs was associated with an improvement across all PROMs. CBMPs were well tolerated across the cohort. However, randomized controlled trials are needed to help determine causality”, concludes the study.
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