New Guidelines Issued on Medical Cannabis for Chronic Pain
International task force shares recommendations for dosing, administering.
by Ryan Basen, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage
September 13, 2020
Chronic pain patients can be treated with medical cannabis following one of three protocols based on patient characteristics, according to an international task force at the virtual PAINWeek meeting.
Citing limited clinician knowledge about medical cannabis treatment and the opioid crisis, one task force member said the recommendations are timely.
“We as a task force believe it’s extremely important to bring [medical cannabis] to patients,” Alan Bell, MD, of the University of Toronto, told MedPage Today. “Our main focus was to provide directions to clinicians.”
Medical cannabis has been suggested to treat chronic pain, the task force noted, but too many providers still do not utilize it because there has not been accepted guidelines about dosing and administration. Others prescribe medical cannabis without knowing how patients can properly dose.
“There’s a huge knowledge gap and no way clinicians can fall back on a specified dosing regimen,” Bell said.
Led by Arun Bhaskar, MD, of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust Pain Management Centre in London, the 20-clinician Global Task Force on Dosing and Administration of Medical Cannabis in Chronic Pain used a modified Delphi process. Among their recommendations:
• Treat the majority of patients along the “routine” scale. This means Read the rest of this entry »