An overwhelming number of patients who have participated in France’s medicinal cannabis trial have experienced benefits from the medication, according to new clinical data.
The data, the first to emerge since the trial was launched in March 2021, revealed that 91% of 1,453 patients reported positive results.
Of that number, 792 were being treated for refractory neuropathic pain, 215 for painful spasticity from multiple sclerosis and 181 for drug-resistant epilepsies.
A further 105 were in oncology, 104 in palliative situations and 56 treated for spasticity.
According to 420 Intel, medicinal cannabis reduced the percentage of patients reporting ‘severe’ or ‘unbearable’ pain from 81% to just 29% after six months.
Just under a third reported a 30% reduction in their pain intensity score after six months, according to a ‘Brief Pain Inventory’ (BPI) questionnaire, while just over 40% reported a ‘significant’ or ‘very significant’ reduction in pain by the third month, improvements which continued past the six and nine-month marks.
The data, released by the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM), showed similarly positive results for palliative care patients, specifically relating to insomnia and pain, with 51% reporting a ‘significant improvement’, and 45% a ‘moderate improvement’.
Across the study, 91% of patients said they were in support of medicinal cannabis legalisation in France.
Despite the positivity, the results are not expected to influence the decision on whether to legalise the medicine in France.
ANSM director Nathalie Richard said the trial was “not intended to assess the effectiveness of medical cannabis, even if clinical data is collected”, but to “to evaluate, in a real situation, the recommendations of the committee in terms of prescribing and dispensing conditions”.
Little Green Pharma and Althea are among the companies supplying product for the trial.
