Global Health Company Khiron Sciences Corp. Releases Outcomes on Study of Medical Cannabis Efficacy for Chronic Pain

Recently, Khiron Life Sciences Corp., a global public health company based in Colombia, published the results of its first clinical study on the use of medical cannabis prescribed to patients in treating chronic pain. According to the article, published in the international peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Pain Research in March 2022 (1), Khiron states, “Our results constitute the first real-world evidence on the clinical use of medicinal cannabis in Colombia and suggest that cannabis-based oral magistral formulations represent a safe and efficacious adjuvant therapeutic option in the management of chronic pain.”

The study was conducted at the Latin American Institute of Neurology and Nervous System (ILANS-Zerenia) in Bogotá, Colombia between May and September of 2021. It investigated the short-, mid-, and long-term impact of two well-defined, oral cannabis-based formulations on patient-reported outcome measures (PROMS) in adult patients diagnosed with chronic pain of diverse etiology. The patients received medicinal cannabis as part of an integrative care regime at ILANS-Zerenia. During this period, 2112 patients (out of 7874 of the patients receiving treatment) completed a PROMS questionnaire aimed at recording the degree of improvement of their primary symptom and any potential side effects (1).

Some of the results of the study included:

1. 92.7% of patients reported some degree of clinical improvement in their chronic pain following medicinal cannabis treatment
2. 71.7% of patients reported no adverse side effects associated to the treatment, and those most reported were mild and appeared to fade over time
3. Some of the side effects reported were somnolence (13%), dizziness (8.1%), and dry mouth (4.3%)

Furthermore, the study found that “males reported less effectiveness in the first 4 weeks of treatment. Sex-specific differences were also found in prescription patterns, with male patients increasing the intake of the balanced chemotype overtime.” In this study, 76.1% participants were female with an average age of 58.7 years old.

One of the conclusions from the study states that (1) “Considering the current lack of medical guidelines, evidence accrued through real-world clinical experience can help inform best medical practices in terms of chemotype selection and dosing regime [of medical cannabis] to maximize therapeutical effectiveness and tolerability.”

References

1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpain.2022.854795/full