“Traditionally, cancer-related pain is mainly treated by opioid analgesics, but most oncologists perceive opioid treatment as hazardous, so alternative therapies are required,” said author David Meiri, an assistant professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

According to the peer-reviewed research, medical cannabis helps lower the pain in oncology patients while also alleviating other symptoms as well. Patients fighting cancer are known to also suffer from depression, anxiety and insomnia, which can also negatively impact the treatment and prognosis. 

New Research Offers New Hope 

It seems that this new Israeli research also provides hope that medical marijuana can be utilized as an alternative to opioids. 

The study included certified oncologists who prescribed medical marijuana to their patients and reported on their progress.  

“Patients completed anonymous questionnaires before starting treatment, and again at several time points during the following six months," said study co-author Gil Bar-Sela, associate professor at the Ha'Emek Medical Center Afula. "We gathered data on a number of factors, including pain measures, analgesics consumption, cancer symptom burden, sexual problems and side effects.”

After analyzing all gathered data, the results revealed that the patients notably improved, and more importantly, their opioid use was considerably reduced. 

“Although our study was very comprehensive and presented additional perspectives on medical cannabis, the sex, age, and ethnicity, as well as cancer types and the stage of cancer meant the variety of patients in our study was wide-ranging," Meiri said. "Therefore, future studies should investigate the level of effectiveness of medicinal cannabis in specific subgroups of cancer patients with more shared characteristics.”

Previous Studies On Marijuana And Cancer 

Photo: Courtesy of National Cancer Institute on Unsplash