A medicinal liquid form of marijuana may show
promise as a treatment for children with severe
epilepsy that is not responding to other treatments,
according to a study released today that will be
presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s
67th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, April 18 to
25, 2015.
The study involved 213 people, ranging from toddlers
to adults, with a median age of 11 who had severe
epilepsy that did not respond to other treatments.
Participants had Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut
syndrome, epilepsy types that can lead to
intellectual disability and lifelong seizures, as
well as 10 other types of severe epilepsy.
The participants were given the drug cannabidiol, a
component of marijuana that does not include the
psychoactive part of the plant that creates a
“high“.
The drug is a liquid taken daily by mouth.
Participants all knew they were receiving the drug
in the open-label study, which was designed to
determine whether the drug was safe and tolerated
well.
Researchers also measured the number of seizures
participants had while taking the drug.
For the 137 people who completed the 12-week study,
the number of seizures decreased by an average of 54
percent from the beginning of the study to the end.
Among the 23 people with Dravet syndrome who
finished the study, the number of convulsive
seizures had gone down by 53 percent by the end of
the study.
For the 11 people with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome who
finished the study, there was a 55 percent reduction
in the number of atonic seizures, which cause a
sudden loss of muscle tone.
A total of 12 people, or 6 percent, stopped taking
the drug due to side effects. Side effects that
occurred in more than 10 percent of participants
included drowsiness (21 percent), diarrhea (17
percent), tiredness (17 percent) and decreased
appetite (16 percent).
Study author Orrin Devinsky, MD, of New York
University Langone Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and
a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, said
that these are early findings and larger,
placebo-controlled, double-blind trials are needed
to measure the effectiveness of the drug.
“So far there have been few formal studies on this
marijuana extract,” Devinsky said. “These results
are of great interest, especially for the children
and their parents who have been searching for an
answer for these debilitating seizures.”
The study was supported by GW Pharmaceuticals.
For more information
American Academy of Neurology - 2015 Annual Meeting
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