Until now, cannabinoids have been used in cancer therapy primarily for the treatment of nausea and pain relief – especially in adults. However, now there are convincing approaches to apply the direct, active effect of CBD (cannabidiol) in the supportive treatment of neuroblastoma.
Neuroblastoma is medicine’s term for a certain proliferation of nerve tissue. Degenerate immature (embryonic) cells of the sympathetic nervous system. Corresponding tissue can be found, for example, in the adrenal medulla and in the area of the spine. Infants are usually affected, but the frequency decreases up to school age. Accordingly, 90% of those affected fall ill before the age of 6.
Neuroblastomas grow silently and only become noticeable when other parts of the body are affected.
Silent danger
The biggest problem is that this malignant tumour often grows silently and only causes symptoms when the primary tumor displaces other structures or organs or when metastases affect organs in the neighborhood and impair their function. This is a rather “devious” cancer and, after lymphatic leukemia, the most common form of cancer in small children. Nevertheless, older children and even adults can fall ill in individual cases.
Little or nothing is known about the causes, even with hereditary genetics. It is currently believed that the degeneration of these neuroembryonic cells begins in the womb and may be a consequence of undefined chromosomal or genetic changes.
Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy still dominate the field of treatment – knowing that the latter two methods are associated with some risks in the context of a maturing organism. Other options include MIBG therapy – treatment with radioactively labelled methyl iodobenzylguanidine. There are also attempts to stimulate the immune system to activate the body’s own cancer defense system or the use of retinoic acid to eliminate remaining tumour cells.
CBD in cancer treatment?
To this end, “euphoria reports” are constantly being published, which must be assessed with caution above all because some of them are merely basic research. In practice, it makes a big difference whether a few isolated cancer cells are destroyed in the laboratory or whether a treatment method has to prove itself in the complexity of the human organism.
CBD performed significantly better than THC in its effect.
It becomes interesting whenever published, comprehensible studies are concerned, such as those of an Israeli research group dedicated to the effect of CBD and THC on neuroblastoma cells, with CBD scoring significantly better in the studies.
CBD (cannabidiol) is an important active ingredient (cannabinoid) of the hemp plant. Unlike THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), CBD has no euphoric effect. More detailed information on CBD can be found in the overview article here.
Until now, the use of cannabinoids in cancer therapy has been limited primarily to palliative alleviation of nausea (through cytostatic drugs) and pain.
CBD triggered the self-destruction of tumor cells and inhibited the growth of new cells.
THC and CBD inhibit the growth of cancer cells
The group then examined both the in-vitro effects of the two substances in the laboratory and their effects in-vivo – i.e. on human cells. All in all, they discovered both cytostatic effects that inhibited the growth of cancer cells and apoptotic effects.
Therefore, this means the self-destruction of cancer cells and inhibition of vascular growth in the tumor tissue, which in practice leads to a deficient supply of the tumor tissue and its reduction.
The positive results of these studies could be used primarily to reduce the dose of heavy drugs in chemotherapy and thus their side effects through the independently active role of the CBD. Due to the psychoactive side effects and the legal situation of THC, CBD is the only therapeutic option.
