Observational study of cannabis in pain management launched nationwide

With the ESCAPE — Extract Study by Can­named­ical about Pain Ease — study, Can­named­ical Phar­ma wants to make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the expan­sion of exist­ing knowl­edge about the treat­ment of pain with med­i­c­i­nal cannabis under every­day con­di­tions. The focus is on the change in pain and qual­i­ty of life using full-spec­trum cannabis extract, which uti­lizes the full spec­trum of effects of the cannabis plant and is tak­en oral­ly. The aim of the study is to improve the evi­dence on the use of med­i­c­i­nal cannabis extract in chron­ic pain patients.

Renowned project partners

In March, the coor­di­nat­ing ethics com­mit­tee gave its pos­i­tive vote for the start of the study, so that the first patients could now be includ­ed in the study. Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h.c. Joachim Nad­stawek of the Bonn Pain Cen­ter is in charge of the study. Can­named­ical Phar­ma is con­duct­ing the study in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Inter­dis­ci­pli­nary Cen­ter for Clin­i­cal Stud­ies (IZKS) of the Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter Mainz under the direc­tion of Michael Hopp, MD.

Gaining knowledge in pain therapy

This study is an obser­va­tion­al study. In this type of study, new find­ings are obtained by observ­ing the use of already estab­lished pre­scrip­tion drugs. Over a treat­ment peri­od of six months, changes in 500 patients are observed and doc­u­ment­ed. Depend­ing on the physi­cian’s dis­cre­tion, up to four physi­cian con­tacts are pos­si­ble, dur­ing which data are col­lect­ed using var­i­ous val­i­dat­ed questionnaires.

“We are proud to be pio­neer­ing the field of med­ical cannabis and con­tribut­ing to improved evi­dence with the ESCAPE study. Our vision is that patients will be able to escape chron­ic pain in the future.”

- Dr. Yvonne von Coburg, Chief Med­ical Officer

Advances in treatment

The com­pa­ny is thus liv­ing up to its phi­los­o­phy of con­stant­ly opti­miz­ing cannabis-based ther­a­pies to bet­ter and bet­ter address the indi­vid­ual ther­a­peu­tic needs of suf­fer­ers. “Research and edu­ca­tion are impor­tant aspects of con­tin­u­ous­ly devel­op­ing med­ical care and ensur­ing effi­cient ther­a­py pro­vi­sion,” says Dr. Yvonne von Coburg.

Although five years have now passed since the Act Amend­ing Nar­cotics Law and Oth­er Reg­u­la­tions (“Cannabis as Med­i­cine”) came into force in Ger­many, the evi­dence-based data sit­u­a­tion is still expand­able. There is still uncer­tain­ty among med­ical and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal pro­fes­sion­als about the use and ther­a­peu­tic options. Yet, accord­ing to study leader Prof. Dr. med. Dr. h.c. Nad­stawek, med­ical cannabis offers an inter­est­ing enrich­ment of the ther­a­peu­tic spec­trum. Espe­cial­ly for peo­ple who have exhaust­ed oth­er ther­a­py options, med­ical cannabis can be an alter­na­tive in pain ther­a­py. In the area of chron­ic pain, ini­tial stud­ies show promis­ing results with cannabi­noid-based ther­a­py. Nev­er­the­less, the use of med­ical cannabis has been rather poor­ly researched and doc­u­ment­ed overall.