London, United Kingdom: Patients with fibromyalgia (FM) report sustained improvements in their health-related quality of life following the use of medical cannabis preparations, according to observational data published in the journal Clinical Rheumatology.
British investigators assessed the adjunctive use of cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) in a cohort of 497 FM patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry. (British health care providers may prescribe cannabis-based medicinal products to patients unresponsive to conventional medications.) Patients’ outcomes were assessed at baseline and at 1, 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. Study participants consumed either herbal cannabis or oil extracts containing standardized concentrations of THC and CBD.
Consistent with previous studies, patients reported long-term improvements in their pain, anxiety, sleep, and overall quality of life following cannabis treatment. Participants who consumed formulations containing greater concentrations of CBD were most likely to report symptom relief.
“CBMPs were associated with improvements in all PROMs [patient-reported outcome measures], fibromyalgia-specific and general-health related, from baseline to all follow-up measures at 1, 3, 6, 12, and 18 months,” the study’s authors concluded. “More randomized controlled trials are warranted, but this large analysis provides real-world data to inform their conduct.”
Other observational studies assessing the use of cannabis products among patients enrolled in the UK Medical Cannabis Registry have reported them to be beneficial for those diagnosed with treatment-resistant epilepsy, cancer-related pain, anxiety, endometriosis, inflammatory bowel disease, hypermobility disorders, depression, migraine, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, substance use disorders, insomnia, and inflammatory arthritis, among other conditions.
Full text of the study, “UK Medicinal Cannabis Registry: A case series analyzing clinical outcomes of medicinal cannabis therapy for fibromyalgia,” appears in Clinical Rheumatology. Additional information on cannabis and FM is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids.