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Guido Fanelli,1,2 Giuliano De Carolis,3 Claudio Leonardi,4 Adele Longobardi,5,6 Ennio Sarli,7,8 Massimo Allegri,1,2 Michael E Schatman9 1Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine Unit, Division of Surgical Sciences, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, 2Anesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Therapy Service, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Parma, Parma, 3Pain Therapy Service, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Pisana, Pisa, 4Department of Drug Addiction Diseases, Local Public Health of Rome, Rome, 5Department of Neurosciences, Reproductive and Odontostomatological Sciences, University of Naples “Federico II”, Naples, 6Young Against the Pain (YAP) Group, Parma, 7Progetti Live Surgery, 8PinHub Group, Florence, Italy; 9Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA Background: Despite growing interest in the therapeutic use of cannabis to manage chronic pain, only limited data that address these issues are available. In recent years, a number of nations have introduced specific laws to allow patients to use cannabis preparations to treat a variety of medical conditions. In 2015, the Italian government authorized the use of cannabis to treat several diseases, including chronic pain generally, spasticity in multiple sclerosis, cachexia and anorexia among AIDS and cancer patients, glaucoma, Tourette syndrome, and certain types of epilepsy. We present the first snapshot of the Italian experience with cannabis use for chronic pain over the initial year of its use.Methods: This is a retrospective case series analysis of all chronic pain patients treated with oral or vaporized cannabis in six hubs during the initial year following the approval of the new Italian law (December 2015 to November 2016). We evaluated routes of administration, types of cannabis products utilized, dosing, and effectiveness and safety of the treatment.Results: As only one of the six centers has extensively used cannabinoids for intractable chronic pain (614 patients of 659), only the population from Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Pisana (Pisa) was considered. Cannabis tea was the primary mode of delivery, and in almost all cases, it was used in association with all the other pain treatments. Initial and follow-up cannabinoid concentrations were found to vary considerably. At initial follow-up, 76.2% of patients continued the treatment, and |
