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bibliography*The PainScience Bibliography contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers and others sources, like a specialized blog. This page is about a single scientific paper in the bibliography, Häuser 2019.

[Evidence of the efficacy and safety of cannabis medicines for chronic pain management: A methodological minefield]

updated


PainSci summary of Häuser 2019?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided at the bottom of the page, as often as possible.

From the abstract: “The more detailed the search of literature and the higher the criteria of the inclusion of studies and of the clinical relevance of the study findings, the more disappointing are the conclusions of systematic reviews on the efficacy and safety of cannabis medicines. … Cannabis medicines can be regarded to be third-line therapy for chronic neuropathic pain. There are signals of a lack of efficacy for all other chronic pain syndromes.”

original abstract†Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.

Recent systematic reviews (SRs) came to divergent conclusions on the efficacy and safety of medical marijuana and cannabis-based medicines for chronic pain management. This paper gives an overview and critical appraisal of the methods of recent SRs of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with cannabis medicines for chronic pain. Selective search of the literature, incorrect data analyses and presentation in favor of cannabis medicines can be detected in both RCTs and SRs. The more detailed the search of literature (e.g. inclusion of so-called grey literature) and the higher the criteria of the inclusion of studies (such as study duration) and of the clinical relevance of the study findings, the more disappointing are the conclusions of SRs on the efficacy and safety of cannabis medicines. There is moderate quality evidence of a moderate relief of neuropathic pain. Cannabis medicines can be regarded to be third-line therapy for chronic neuropathic pain. There are signals of a lack of efficacy for all other chronic pain syndromes. New high-quality RCTs and approaches, such as network meta-analyses combining different treatments and controlled and observational including additional outcomes than pain relief, are necessary to better define the importance of cannabis medicines for chronic pain management.

related content

These four articles on PainScience.com cite Häuser 2019 as a source:

This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights: