Cannabis users have 55% lower rate of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

This study examined data from over 100 million patients in the U.S. National Inpatient Sample Database (NIS) between 2002 and 2014 to investigate the relationship between Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) and cannabis use in humans. It was published in April 2022 in the journal Cureus.

HCC is a common cancer malignancy and is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

Of the 100 million plus patients, about 1% were diagnosed with "cannabis abuse" (996,290 patients). During these years the coding system used did NOT have a choice for cannabis "user" (it does now), so ANYONE that admitted to using cannabis was considered an "abuser".The authors use the term cannabis "users" frequently, instead of "abusers".

After analysis and adjustment for confounding factors, the results clearly showed that the cannabis users were half as likely to get HCC as those that were not cannabis users. 

"Based on our large database analysis, we found that cannabis use patients were 55% less likely to have HCC compared to patients without cannabis use."

The full text article is here at Cureus.com.