Bod Australia is funding an Australia-wide observational study to investigate the safety and efficacy of pharmaceutical-grade, non-psychotropic medicinal cannabis.
Five ethics-approved clinics are involved with the study providing telehealth and in-person consultations.
During the study, consenting patients periodically complete validated questionnaires on TGA and FDA-approved software, for up to 12 months. Sixty patients, across a range of conditions, have already been recruited.
The ultimate goal is to enrol 500 patients, aged 18 years and older, who are eligible for prescription with MediCabilis in order to evaluate the use, efficacy and safety of the medicine and patient outcomes.
Patients with refractory chronic conditions including mood disorders such as PTSD and other anxiety disorders, and those involving inflammation, neuroexcitability and pain, may benefit from medicinal cannabis therapy and participating in the study. Doctors are invited to refer such patients to one of the ethics-approved study sites, via the study referral form.
Bod’s Chief Scientific Officer, Dr Adele Hosseini, said: “The endocannabinoid system is critically involved in the regulation of stress, emotion and sleep and evidence to support its benefit in disturbance of these indications is growing every day.
“Randomised clinical trials are required to convincingly prove efficacy of CBD-rich medicinal cannabis in the treatment of mental and psychological conditions, like it has for intractable epilepsies, but it’s studies like this one that will guide that necessary research.”
Bod CEO Jo Patterson said: “We want to give people who suffer from chronic and severe conditions that haven’t had luck with conventional treatment options the chance to try something that could really alleviate their suffering.”
