Predictors of Response to Medical Cannabis for Chronic Pain: A Retrospective Review of Real-Time Observational Data.

Abstract

Objective: People living with chronic pain increasingly use medical cannabis for symptom relief. We conducted a retrospective cohort study examining cannabis for chronic pain relief using anonymous archival data obtained from the medicinal cannabis tracking app, Strainprint®.

Method: We acquired cannabis utilization data from 741 adults with chronic pain and used multilevel modeling to examine the association of age, sex, type of pain (muscle, joint or nerve pain), cannabis formulation (high CBD, balanced CBD:THC, or high THC), route of administration (inhaled or ingested), cannabis use before vs. during the COVID-19 pandemic, and duration of cannabis use, with pain relief.

Results: Most patients were female (n = 464; 63%), with a mean age of 39 (SD = 11), and our cohort had completed a total of 83,622 tracked cannabis sessions through Strainprint. The majority of sessions reported use of inhaled cannabis products (78%), typically with high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC; 64%) versus high cannabidiol (CBD; 15%) or balanced THC:CBD (21%) products. The median change in pain scores across sessions was -3.0 points on a 10-point numeric rating scale (NRS; IQR -4.5 to -2.0). In our adjusted model, greater pain relief was associated with male vs. female sex (-0.69 points on a 10-point NRS; 95%CI -0.46 to -0.91). We found statistically significant, but trivial associations with joint pain (-0.05 points), balanced THC:CBD products in the long term (-0.003 points), and cannabis use during the pandemic (0.18 points).

Conclusions: We found that people living with chronic pain report important pain relief when using cannabis for medical purposes, and that men may achieve greater pain relief than women.