Cannabinoids: research and patient questions

This is a review article written by a German psychiatrist that looks at a condition in which people who use cannabis regularly suffer repeated, severe bouts of vomiting. It pulls together reports from other doctors about who gets it, how it is diagnosed, and how it has been treated.

This study looked at people in São Paulo, Brazil, who said they had recently used a lab-made cannabis-like product, sometimes called spice or K2. Researchers tested a saliva sample from each person and compared the results with what the people said they had taken.

Researchers studied whether patients with digestive system cancers who received prescriptions for Food and Drug Administration-approved cannabis medications during early chemotherapy reduced their reliance on opioid pain medications. They analyzed electronic health records from a large national network of health systems covering more than one hundred forty thousand patients over a multi-year period.

Researchers followed adults undergoing major abdominal operations for cancer to see how regular use of cannabis affects pain levels, pain medication needs, and recovery complications. Patients were categorized based on their self-reported habits and confirmed with blood tests taken on the day of surgery.

This study looked at young men who use cannabis to see how it might affect their hormone levels. Researchers conducted detailed tests to measure various hormones in the body. The goal was to understand if cannabis has an impact on endocrine function, which refers to the system that produces hormones.

This report describes one older man who needed a procedure to clear a blocked bile duct. The doctors had to guide a tube through a stomach that was folded into an unusual shape.

This study looked at people who have a condition that slowly takes away their ability to find and use words, along with a family member or close friend who helps them communicate. All of them took part in a personalized speech therapy program that focused on the everyday communication goals they chose for themselves, such as talking with family or using the phone. The researchers then checked how well each person met those personal goals afterward and a year later.

Clinicians should consider the diversity of cannabinoids and dosing regimens when evaluating treatment options for patients.

This is a plan for a study of adults with sickle cell disease who have long-lasting pain. Participants are randomly assigned to take a prescription synthetic form of the main active ingredient in cannabis (called dronabinol) or an inactive pill for eight weeks, and neither they nor the researchers know which one they receive.

This is a review article about older adults, meaning people aged 50 and up, who use cannabis to help them sleep. The authors looked at what research already exists and what is still missing. They did not run a new study with patients.