In a Clinical Trial, Cannabis Drug Reduces Seizures

A promising clinical trial out of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has shown that purified cannabinoid is effective in reducing the number and severity of seizures in patients with certain forms of epilepsy that previously had been deemed treatment-resistant.

Over the course of the 12-week trial, 162 patients between the ages of 1 and 30 were evaluated and treated with Epidiolex, a highly purified extract of the cannabis plant containing pure cannabidiol (CBD), but no tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

According to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, “The results showed a median 36.5-percent reduction in monthly motor seizures, with a median monthly frequency of motor seizures falling from 30 motor seizures a month to 15.8 over the course of the 12-week trial.”

“This trial is pioneering a new treatment for children with the most severe epilepsies, for whom nothing else works,” Maria Roberta Cilio, senior author and director of research at the UCSF Pediatric Epilepsy Center, said in a news release from UCSF.

“This is just the first step,” she said. “This open label study found that CBD both reduces the frequency of seizures and has an adequate safety profile in children and young adults. Randomized, controlled trials are the next step to characterize the true efficacy and safety profile of this promising compound.”

Produced by UK-based biopharmaceutical company GW Pharmaceuticals, Epidiolex is considered a Schedule 1 substance, and is closely monitored and restricted by the FDA. GW Pharmaceuticals supplied the cannabidiol for the study, but according to UCSF, “had no role in the study design, data analysis, data interpretation, writing of the study or publication submission.”

Results like those from the UCSF study are immensely promising for children and young adults suffering from certain severe forms of epilepsy — Dravet syndrome, for example. Patients with Dravet can experience dozens or even hundreds of seizures a day, including prolonged life-threatening seizures, called status epilepticus, in which epileptic seizures follow one another without the patient regaining consciousness between them.

No antiepileptic treatments, including drugs and specialized diets that help with other forms of epilepsy, have proven effective in reducing seizures in Dravet patients.

‘No Surprise Here’

Research on cannabis-based treatments seems poised to turn the medical community on its ear, but the results are hardly surprising to the alternative medicine community.

“The medical community should be looking at these results as pretty astounding. Most antiepileptic drugs don’t get that level of efficacy,” says Joel Stanley, CEO of CW Botanicals/Stanley Brothers Social Enterprises. “But for groups like us, [the UCSF results are] not a surprise. We were seeing results like this as far back as 2012.”

Stanley, along with his four brothers, bred a new hybrid strain of high-CBD-content cannabis that has almost no THC. The brothers named their plant “Charlotte’s Web” in honor of Charlotte Figi, a then-5-year-old suffering with the painful, debilitating effects of Dravet, who responded extremely well to the treatment.

Stanley represents the flip side of the cannabis-as-treatment coin — advocating whole-plant cannabis treatments vs. pharmaceuticals derived from the cannabis plant. But he sees great value in the research. Not all patients respond the same to any one treatment, so the more options the better, he says, adding “I would like to see cannabis exist in both worlds.

“Success stories from the medical marijuana world started the movement,” he adds. “Now it needs clinical trials like this from GW Pharmaceuticals and from companies like us doing work with Johns Hopkins [for example] for the medical community to really get on board and see this as a truly valuable tool in their arsenal.”