Marijuana will help in the fight against cancer?
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
There is evidence that cannabis was used as a medicine 5,000 years ago in China.
This plant was also used for medical purposes in Asia, South America, the Middle East and southern Africa.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, evaluated the safety and extent of tolerability of synthetic cannabinoids, called dexanabinol (ETS2101).
Injections of the drug are given weekly, intravenously to patients with all forms of brain cancer, both with primary tumors and with metastatic ones.
"At this stage of the research, we are studying the safety of several doses of the drug, its degree of penetration into the brain and the implications for further research in this direction," says Moores Santos Kesari, lead author of the study and head of the Neuro-Oncology Unit at the Carcinoma Center in San Diego. "We are trying to determine the safest and optimal amount of medicine to treat a brain tumor."
Dexanabinol is a synthetic cannabinoid without psychotropic effects, which has the properties of a potential neuroprotective - anti-inflammatory and antioxidant and excitotoxic.
Recent studies of scientists suggest that dexanabinol kills cancer cell cultures obtained from different types of tumors.
Additional studies conducted by a group of researchers led by Dr. Kesari demonstrated the beneficial effect of dexanabinol on the line of brain cancer cells.
"Why do not we just invent new drugs, but also use known and available ones, studying new possible ways of using them for different diagnoses?" - Santosh Kesari asks.
"Over time, we will conduct a study of the molecular phenotype of the tumor and the patient's reactions, which will allow us to make the treatment technique more specific and effective," promises Kesari.
For patients who participated in the study, dexanabinol may be the last hope, since other methods of treatment, including surgical removal, radiotherapy and systemic therapy, did not help them.
[