Skip to content

Medical Cannabis and Breast Cancer

Medical Cannabis and Breast Cancer

October is breast cancer awareness month and we at Arfinn Med would like to reiterate the importance of early screening and regular tests.  According to the American Cancer Society:

“Breast cancer is the most common cancer in American women, except for skin cancers. Currently, the average risk of a woman in the United States developing breast cancer sometime in her life is about 13%. This means there is a 1 in 8 chance she will develop breast cancer. This also means there is a 7 in 8 chance she will never have the disease.”

Though more studies are needed, we wanted to share some current research about medical marijuana and how it can possibly help breast cancer patients.

According to Virginia F. Borges, M.D., MMSc., professor of medicine and director of the Breast Cancer Research Program at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, she finds that cannabis can help improve some of the symptoms associated the breast cancer treatment.

“I’ve mainly seen it used in conjunction with prescription drugs to control pain and other side effects in patients living with metastatic disease,” she said. “It’s rare that a person living with metastatic breast cancer would have only one side effect to manage. So, by adding in medical marijuana, it often allows me to cut back on the number of drugs I prescribe. With a high-quality source for medical marijuana and knowing how it affects an individual, using medical marijuana can put more control back in the hands of my patient. If someone is feeling good, she may only need to take one or two drops per day. If she’s not feeling good, she may need three or four drops per day. Many of the prescription drugs don’t have this flexibility. Any time you can give control back to a person when their living with cancer, it’s a good thing.”

In addition to helping with the side effects of treatment, some research has shown the ability for cannabidiol (CBD) to actually treat breast cancer itself.  A study published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics found CBD to be very helpful in inhibiting aggressive cancer cells.

“In the study the team led by senior scientist Dr. Sean D. McAllister used CBD to inhibit the activity of the Id-1 gene, believed to be responsible for cancer cells becoming more aggressive and metastatic. “Metastasis is the final and fatal step in the progression of breast cancer,” the authors write. “Currently available therapeutic strategies at this stage of cancer progression are often nonspecific, have only marginal efficacy and are highly toxic.”

Though cannabinoid medicine has been shown to help with some aspects of breast cancer and the resulting treatment side effects, more research is needed to truly understand its role in the recovery of breast cancer patients.  We hope that as the stigma of medical marijuana disappears, research will be easier to conduct.

In the meantime, please get regular screenings and encourage others to do as well!

Resources:

https://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/comp_med/types/medical-marijuana

https://health.usnews.com/health-care/patient-advice/articles/2017-09-05/can-marijuana-help-with-breast-cancer

https://www.cancer.org/cancer/breast-cancer/about/how-common-is-breast-cancer.html

Stories you may be interested in

July Updates

In our quest to save medical marijuana clinics valuable time, Arfinn Med has continued to release new functionality that improves EMR workflows.  This has led to the development of our new telehealth platform, new automated patient intake emails, and generating all state required documentation.  Continuing on our quest, we are proud to release our new…
Read More

Medical marijuana helped elderly with chronic pain and reduced their use of opioids, study found

Your grandparents’ chronic aches and pains might best be eased with a little weed, a new study suggests. Not only did folks over 75 who took medical marijuana report less pain, their use of pot-based capsules, tinctures and e-cigarettes allowed a third of these patients to reduce their use of opioid painkillers, researchers found. “Medical marijuana, in…
Read More

The Lack of Clinical Trials in the Medical Marijuana Industry

As time goes on, medical marijuana is starting to break barriers in various states across the country. Out of the 50 states, 33 have approved a comprehensive medical marijuana program (NCSL). Currently, marijuana, medical or recreational, is illegal at the federal level, despite legalization in various states. Many medical professionals are interested in prescribing medical…
Read More

Are You Prepared For Questions About Medical Cannabis?

With over 85% of Americans supporting legalizing medical cannabis, it’s inevitable that patients will begin asking their primary care doctors about its use and overall efficacy. Doctors and other medical professionals will be called upon to be ‘sense-makers’ for a treatment they never studied in medical school and have limited available research to draw upon. …
Read More

Medical Marijuana Faces Acceptance Barrier by Hesitant Medical Schools

A new study shows a growing interest by university pharmacy programs in teaching about medical marijuana in their curriculum, while medical schools seem to lag behind. Sixty-two percent of U.S. pharmacy school respondents queried in a new survey said they included medical marijuana in their doctorate of pharmacy curriculum. That’s according to a nine-page study co-authored by…
Read More

Medical marijuana: Florida House seeks to intervene in ‘monumental’ case

TALLAHASSEE — Florida House leaders should be able to participate in a lawsuit that could revolutionize the state’s medical marijuana market, a lawyer for the Republican-led chamber told a three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal Tuesday. But Tampa-based Florigrown argued that legislators instead should concentrate on fixing the law, aimed at carrying…
Read More

Leave a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.