First Trial Of Using Cannabis On Brain Tumors Under Way

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, GBM accounts for approximately 50% of the 22,500 new cases of brain cancer diagnosed in the United States alone each year.(1) Treatment with regards to brain cancer are very limited which makes the study of cannabis and its effect on brain tumors crucial.

It’s about time, isn’t it? For several years now, pre-clinical research conducted by multiple scientists and universities all over the world have demonstrated that cannabinoids inhibit the viability of glioma cells both in vitro and in vivo.This happens through the process of apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Cannabis has successfully demonstrated tumor growth-inhibiting action and an improvement in the therapeutic efficacy of temozolomide, a standard treatment for glioma. GW pharmaceuticals have also followed this research and also conduct it themselves. As a result they’ve shown tumor response to be positively associated with tissue levels of cannabinoids.

We are very excited about moving this compound into further human study and the prospects of cannabinoids as new anti-cancer treatments. This is GW’s first clinical study of cannabinoids as a potential treatment to inhibit tumor growth. We believe this clinical program demonstrates the flexibility and broad application of GW’s cannabinoids platform to treat significant, unmet therapeutic needs. – Dr Steven Wright, Director of Research and Development at GW

The study will involve 20 patients, it will be a two-part study with an open-label phase to assess safety and tolerability of GW cannabinoids in combination with temozolomide, and a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase with patients randomized to active or placebo.

The study objective is to assess the tolerability, safety, and pharmacodynamics of a mixture of two principal cannabinoids, THC and CBD in a 1:1 allocation ration, in combination with temozolomide in patients with recurrent GBM.