UCSF

Abstract

BACKGROUND

Gliomas are devastating primary tumors of the central nervous system that often present with difficult to manage symptoms in addition to the antineoplastic tumor itself. Due to recent increase in popularity and societal acceptance of cannabis products, their use by glioma patients has increased.

METHODS

We conducted a single center, prospective study: patients with glioma answered a locally validated survey to inquire about their cannabis use at baseline and every three months. Quality of Life was measured using the EORTC QLQ-C30, its complementary module BN-20 and the EQ-5D-5L instrument. Eligible participants were classified as cannabis users or non-users. We performed linear regression clustered by subjects to see differences by user group and trends overtime.

RESULTS

To date, 89 patients agreed to participate, enrolled, and answered the baseline questionnaires, and 64 have answered the 3 month follow up survey. The mean age was 49.7(SD 13.74), 55 were male, 55 were cannabis users at baseline (61.8%) and 34 at 3 months (53.13%). Patients who were cannabis users scored 11.73 lower points at baseline when compared to non-users (79.65 [SD 18.93] vs 67.92 [SD 19.22]) in the QLQ-C30 instrument. Similarly, cannabis users recorded 9.624 lower points at 3 months compared to non-users (70.1 [SD 21.33] vs 79.72 [SD13.95]). The difference-in-difference estimator was 2.108 (p< 0.7).

CONCLUSION

Although we observed cannabis users scoring lower QoL measurements (p< 0.05) at baseline and 3 months, we observed a slight improvement in QoL of cannabis users while observing no change or decline (in some measures) among non-users. Our findings provide insight to the impact that cannabis has in QoL over time. While not conclusive, these preliminary results need to be studied on a longer-term basis with a larger sample size in order to detect trends on quality of life among patients with different tumor types.