Marijuana As Medicine? The Science Beyond the Controversy (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Marijuana and Cancer
Marijuana and Cancer
Pages 95-105
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 95... ...
Several patients and their relatives many of whom had no prior experience with the drug have claimed that it is. They include this woman, an author of a 1992 medical marijuana proposal that served as the basis for California's Proposition 215 (see Chapter 11~.
|
From page 96... ...
Clinical studies indicate that marijuana does none of these things as well as the best medications available, but marijuana has the apparent advantage of treating several symptoms simultaneously. Medicines based on certain chemicals in marijuana could also be used to complement standard medications or to treat patients for whom such therapies have failed.
|
From page 97... ...
As a result of these limitations, most clinical research aimed at relieving the side effects of chemotherapy focuses on the ability of candidate compounds to prevent or curtail vomiting. Although researchers do not completely understand how chemotherapy agents cause vomiting, they suspect that the drugs or their digestive byproducts stimulate receptors in key sensory cells.
|
From page 98... ...
Two additional clinical studies, also to be discussed, provide evidence that, to a limited extent, smoking marijuana helps suppress chemotherapy-induced emesis. In clinical comparisons THC tended to reduce chemotherapyinduced vomiting better than a placebo.
|
From page 99... ...
Patients who had no prior experience with marijuana or related drugs were more likely to report psychological discomfort after taking it than those who had tried marijuana previously. On the other hand, advocates of marijuana use for medical purposes maintain that, when such patients receive prior guidance on marijuana's effects, they rarely experience adverse psychological reactions upon using the drug for the first time.
|
From page 100... ...
Another preliminary study tested smoked marijuana in cancer patients who were not helped by conventional antiemetic drugs; however, serotonin antagonists currently considered the most effective antiemetics were not yet available in 1988 when this study was conducted.7 Nearly 80 percent of the 56 participants rated marijuana as "moderately effective" or "highly effective," compared with other antiemetics they had previously used. Since this group of patients varied greatly in terms of their chemotheraputic regimen as well as with regard to their prior experience with marijuana, these results must be considered approximate at best.
|
From page 101... ...
, and both cancer and AIDS patients currently receive similar treatments for the condition. Standard therapies for cachexia include intravenous or tube feeding as well as treatment with megestrol acetate (Megace)
|
From page 102... ...
, and anxiety. HARDLy A MAGIC BULLET Taken as a whole, clinical studies on cannabinoids and cancer pain have reached conclusions similar to those of comparable studies on nausea and malnutrition: marijuana-based treatments, while somewhat effective, underperform conventional medications and cause numerous side effects.
|
From page 103... ...
For these reasons the IOM study team recommended that researchers test the combined effects of cannabinoids and other antiemetics in suppressing nausea and vomiting in patients who respond poorly to standard treatments. As described earlier, the IOM team also recommended the development of a rapid-onset drug delivery system that could provide the benefits of inhaling cannabinoids without the harmfu]
|
From page 104... ...
Clinical evidence shows that existing treatments for pain, nausea, and malnutrition outperform marijuana in the vast majority of patients. To substitute marijuana for a more effective drug is to practice bad medicine.
|
From page 105... ...
1997. "The safety and pharmacokinetics of single-agent and combination therapy with megestrol acetate and dronabinol for the treatment of HIV wasting syndrome." The DATRI 004 Study Group.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.