Silver bullet for epilepsy?
CONSUMING a marijuanabased drug may be safe in treating children with severe epilepsy, results of a clinical trial have shown.
Following treatment with cannabidiol – a nonpsychoactive compound found in marijuana – about one in five children were described as much or very much improved from their baseline, while around half reported no, or a very slight, improvement, Xinhua news agency reported.
While the trial was conducted on a small group of children with severe epilepsy, it showed that the drug had a manageable side effect profile, but showed
extensive symptom relief for only a small number of patients.
The trial “involved the sickest children with epilepsy – children who are having seizures many times a day, who have been recently hospitalised for their epilepsy, and have failed on average about nine anti-epilepsy drugs before,” said lead author John Lawson, paediatric neurologist at Sydney’s Children’s Hospital.
“The main aim of the study was about safety. We found that there were a few safety concerns, but overall those safety issues were very manageable and the drug overall was very safe for the majority,” he added. The study was published in the Medical
Journal of Australia.
Although legally cannabis must be prescribed by a doctor, recent reports of cannabis derivatives being successful in treating children with epilepsy have led to a number of parents of sick children sourcing their own medical marijuana. While the study’s authors said the results were significant, they stressed that the purpose of this study was about safety, not efficacy.
The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved the Epidiolex (cannabidiol) (CBD) oral solution for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy – LennoxGastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome
– in patients two years of age and older.