Sunday, October 29, 2006

El 65% de los pacientes tratados con cannabis mejoran su calidad de vida.

This is a follow up on an earlier post, Less pain in Spain, about cannabis trials in Catalonia.

The results:
On 20 October the Health Committee of Catalonia presented results of a clinical study with the cannabis extract Sativex in patients with different chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain as well as appetite and weight loss. 65 per cent of the 123 participants experienced an improvement of quality of life and a decrease of pain. The other 35 per cent discontinued the treatment due to side effects, mainly dizziness, dry mouth and fatigue.

It was a pilot study that started in January 2006 in six hospitals in the region of Barcelona. According to the press release of the Health Committee the study demonstrated that cannabis could be an alternative for "patients with severe chronic diseases of different causes that would not well respond to standard medications and would be associated with a decrease of quality of life."
See the full write up in Spanish on cadenaser.com.

Source: IACM Bulletin.