Medical Cannabis for Neuropathic Pain Found to Improve Patients’ Quality of Life More Than Any Other Treatment

This paper, published by the Project21 team at DrugScience, reports findings that medical cannabis is "among the most effective treatments for people with long term, problematic neuropathic pain (CNP)".

David Badcock, CEO of DrugScience, says:

“This new paper is a significant contribution to the growing evidence base that medical cannabis is an effective and safe treatment, and the side effects - such as overdose or dependency – are less likely than those associated with many commonly-prescribed medications, and which impact a person’s quality of life. Our hope is that NICE will fully consider medical cannabis, and use evidence like this to improve access to cannabis based medical products for the thousands of patients who are currently living with chronic neuropathic pain in the UK”.

SUMMARY

Pharmacological management of chronic neuropathic pain (CNP) still represents a major clinical challenge. A group of expert clinicians (pain specialists and psychiatrists), scientists, and patient representatives convened to assess the relative benefit–safety balance of 12 pharmacological treatments, including orally administered cannabinoids/cannabis-based medicinal products, for the treatment of CNP in adults. This briefing document reports the inputs to an MCDA model developed by the group at a facilitated workshop in 2020 to consolidate the scientific evidence base with clinical and patient experience, and the output results.

You can access the full publication here.

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