The federal health agency is awarding researchers $3.2 million to study the effects of using cannabis while receiving immunotherapy for cancer treatment, as well as whether access to marijuana helps reduce health disparities.
The University of Buffalo (UB) announced that one of its psychiatrists has received the research grant funding from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Cancer Institute, which will go toward a year-long study to assess how the common cancer treatment is affected by patients’ cannabis use.
UB will be partnering Thomas Jefferson University and Oregon Health and Science University to carry out the study at three different sites, each recruiting 450 cancer patients who are being treated with immunotherapy, which carriers fewer side effects than chemotherapy and is meant to boost the body’s natural defenses protecting healthy cells.
According to UB, about 40 percent of cancer patients report using marijuana as a treatment option to reduce pain, improve mood and help them sleep. Yet there are “virtually no long-term studies evaluating its potential benefits and harms for persons treated with immunotherapy for cancer, despite cancer and its treatments being qualifying conditions in most of the 37 states and Washington, D.C., that have legalized adult use or medical cannabis,” principal investigator Rebecca Ashare said in a press release on Tuesday.
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