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NICE guideline publication – Cannabis-based medicinal products

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Category: Medical Info and Drug Trials

Published on Monday, 02 December 2019 09:12

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Just to inform you that NICE have published their guideline on cannabis-based medicinal products. These can be found here: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng144.

We are very pleased to see that fibromyalgia has been explicitly mentioned as the first key recommendation for research, quoted as follows:

1 Fibromyalgia or persistent treatment-resistant neuropathic pain in adults

For adults with fibromyalgia or persistent treatment-resistant neuropathic pain, what is the clinical and cost effectiveness of cannabidiol (CBD), containing no, or traces of, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as an add-on to standard treatment?

To find out why the committee made the research recommendation on fibromyalgia or persistent treatment-resistant neuropathic pain in adults see rationale and impact.

Rationale and impact
People who have fibromyalgia or persistent treatment-resistant neuropathic pain are often taking high doses of medicines for pain relief over long periods. These can cause nausea, drowsiness, mood disturbance and fatigue. The committee noted that this is a significant population of people with chronic pain (around 15%). They therefore made a research recommendation for CBD in adults with fibromyalgia or treatment-resistant neuropathic pain.

No doubt that Fibromyalgia Actions contributions during the scoping stage contributed to this. We believe it is a positive step for us to see that they’ve acknowledged the importance of work in this area. Our expectations are still realistic, and evidence will take time. We will be supporting future initiatives for this research and projects like ProjectTwenty21.