Tateo, S. (2017). State of the evidence: Cannabinoids and cancer pain--A systematic review. Journal of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 29, 94–103.

STUDY PURPOSE: Determine the current state of the science regarding use of cannabinoids for cancer pain

TYPE OF STUDY: Systematic review

DATABASES USED: CINAHL, BIOSIS, PUBMED, Cochrane collaboration

INCLUSION CRITERIA: RCT examining effects of cannabis or cannabinoids on cancer pain

EXCLUSION CRITERIA: Non-cancer pain, non-RCTs

TOTAL REFERENCES RETRIEVED: 81

EVALUATION METHOD AND COMMENTS ON LITERATURE USED: Jadad scale used to evaluate study quality. Six studies used a crossover design and two were parallel group design. All were deemed to be of low to moderate quality

FINAL NUMBER STUDIES INCLUDED: 8 

TOTAL PATIENTS INCLUDED IN REVIEW: 683

SAMPLE RANGE ACROSS STUDIES: 10 to 360

KEY SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS: All patients had moderate to severe pain

PHASE OF CARE: Not specified or not applicable     

APPLICATIONS: Palliative care

Studies examined oral THC, nabiximols, oral synthetic analog of THC, and oral benzypranoperidine. The majority of studies showed analgesic effects when compared to placebo and strongest evidence was seen for nabiximols.

Cannabinoids appear to be useful adjuncts for cancer pain not completely relieved by opioids, but there is a lack of high-quality evidence.

• Limited number of studies included
• Mostly low quality/high risk of bias studies
• Low sample sizes

Cannabinoids may be useful adjuncts to analgesics for cancer-related pain management. However, the evidence reviewed here was mainly of low to moderate quality. Further well-designed research is warranted.