UK cancer patients say cannabis helps them manage pain

Pain that arises as a result of cancer is usually categorized separately in the medical community. This study examined cannabis-based medicinal products' (CBMPs) effectiveness in relieving pain specifically experienced by cancer patients. It was published in February 2025 in the Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy.

They measured a broad range of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and adverse events (AEs) at 1, 3, and 6 months using these common patient-reported scales:

  • Brief Pain Inventory (BPI)
  • Pain visual analogue scale (Pain-VAS), from 0 to 10
  • General Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7)
  • Single-item Sleep Quality Scale (SQS)
  • EQ-5D-5L (a self-assessed, health related quality of life, or HRQoL questionnaire)
  • Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC)

 

168 cancer patients were included in the clinical data collected from the UKMCR (United Kingdom Medical Cannabis Registry) for patients prescribed CBMPs for CP (cancer pain). About 61% were male  and 39% were female. The mean age was 54. 

The United Kingdom only allows patients to try medicinal cannabis if "they failed to gain sufficient improvement in symptoms from licensed therapies", so this treatment is literally a last resort.

After 6 months, the median daily doses were 40mg CBD and 14.6mg THC, however THC doses ranged from about 8mg THC up to 100mg THC daily. 68% of the patients used only oils (oral or tincture), while about 20% used both oils and flower. 11% used only flower.

Results:

All pain-specific scales, including BPI-Severity, BPI-Interference and Pain-VAS, showed an improvement (p < 0.010) from baseline to follow-up at 1, 3 and 6 months

there were improvements in GAD-7 and SQS from baseline to all follow-up periods (p < 0.001)

The EQ-5D-5L anxiety and depression, pain and discomfort, and usual activities domains, as well as the index value, had all improved from baseline to all follow-up periods (p < 0.010) 

 

The most common adverse events were lethargy and fatigue reported by only 5 patients who were considered "cannabis naive" (those without previous experience with any form of cannabis).

Authors' conclusions:

initiation of CBMPs is associated with improvements in pain-specific and general health-related quality of life outcomes in CP patients over six months, with a relatively low incidence of mild-to-moderate AEs and no life-threatening AEs

 

They noted also that, "the study is limited by its observational, uncontrolled design, meaning that causality cannot be determined".

While scientifically we cannot conclude that the medicinal cannabis was the CAUSE of their improvements, it is certainly meaningful that the vast majority of the cancer pain patients reported that cannabinoid products DID help them manage their pain. Additionally, the authors acknowledged that "self-reporting of PROMs is the gold standard assessment for pain-specific outcomes in CP patients".

The full text article is here at Taylor and Francis Online.

 

Source:

Varadpande, M., Erridge, S., Aggarwal, A., Cowley, I., Evans, L., Clarke, E., … Sodergren, M. (2025). UK Medical Cannabis Registry: An Analysis of Clinical Outcomes of Medicinal Cannabis Therapy for Cancer Pain. Journal of Pain & Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/15360288.2025.2457101

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