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UK: Cannabis study confirms benefit to MS patients
Nigel Hawkes The Times
Saturday 11 Sep 2004 CANNABIS-based medicines may have long-term benefits for multiple sclerosis patients, a trial has shown. The finding, announced at the British Association Science Festival in Exeter yesterday, comes from a year-long follow-up of a 15-week trial that had produced inconclusive results. John Zajicek of the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth said that after the trial had finished patients were asked if they wanted to continue taking the capsules, and 80per cent agreed. The aim had been simply to confirm the safety of the drug. Analysis showed that over the longer term the results were positive. Evidence on the extent of muscle stiffness and the degree of disability of patients who took capsules containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis, showed some improvements. Dr Zajicek said that the results were "encouraging evidence of a long-term effect" that now needed to be confirmed in fresh trials. The 637 patients who joined the trial were all seriously disabled by MS. Only half could walk and many were bedbound. A third were given capsules containing THC, a third similar capsules containing whole cannabis extract, and the other third dummy capsules. The results of the 15-week trial, published last year in The Lancet were ambiguous. While patients were enthusiastic about the effect of the active pills, some of those on placebo also felt better. Some improvement was found in walking time in patients still able to walk, but overall there was no improvement in disability assessed by physiotherapists. The problem, Dr Zajicek said, was that many patients on the cannabis pills correctly guessed that they were taking active ingredients and not placebo. The benefits seen in the longer term have come in the group taking THC in the form of Marinol, a drug produced by Solvay Pharmaceuticals, an international company with headquarters in Brussels. To test whether the beneficial effects that MS patients claim for cannabis are real, two parallel but independent sets of trials have been running: Dr Zajicek's trial and a series of trials by GW Pharmacueticals, a British company licensed to grow cannabis for clinical use. In June GW Pharmaceuticals announced positive results in a trial of its cannabis-based medicine, Sativex, in 189 MS patients. A significant improvement was found in muscle stiffness. Geoffrey Guy, the executive chairman, said: "The effects shown in this trial are over and above those achieved by patients on their existing treatments alone."
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