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Radiation oncologist perceptions of therapeutic cannabis use among cancer patients

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Abstract

Introduction

Cancer patients are increasingly incorporating medical marijuana into the management of treatment-related side effects. Currently however, data is limited regarding the risks and benefits of therapeutic cannabis for cancer patients. We sought to characterize radiation oncologists’ practices and opinions regarding therapeutic cannabis via a nationwide survey.

Materials and methods

An anonymous survey was distributed via email to 873 radiation oncologists in the American Society for Radiation Oncology member database. Radiation oncologists were asked their opinions and practices regarding the use of therapeutic cannabis for their patients. Bivariate analyses of potential predictors for responses were conducted using standard statistical techniques.

Results

One hundred seven radiation oncologists completed the survey. According to the survey, 36% of respondents would recommend therapeutic cannabis to their patients to mitigate treatment toxicity. Physicians practicing in states where medical marijuana is legal were more likely to recommend it compared to physicians working in states that have not legalized medical marijuana (OR = 3.79, 1.19–12.1, p = 0.01). Seventy-one percent of respondents reported therapeutic cannabis as being effective at least some of the time for managing treatment-related toxicities. Fifty-eight percent of physicians reported lacking sufficient knowledge to advise patients regarding therapeutic cannabis, while 86% of respondents were interested in learning more about therapeutic cannabis for cancer patients.

Conclusions

Although a majority of radiation oncologists believe there are benefits to therapeutic cannabis, many are hesitant to recommend for or against its use. Radiation oncologists appear to be interested in learning more about how therapeutic cannabis may play a role in their patients’ care.

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Data availability

Research data are stored in an institutional repository and will be shared upon request to the corresponding author.

Code availability

Not applicable.

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Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, City of Hope National Medical Center, 1500 E Duarte Avenue, Duarte, CA, 91010, USA

    Jennifer Novak, Jason Liu, Tariq Abuali, Jessica Vazquez, Ronny Kalash & Arya Amini

  2. Department of Population Sciences, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, USA

    Xiaoke Zou & Virginia Sun

  3. Department of Supportive Care Medicine, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, CA, USA

    Brett Evans & Matthew J. Loscalzo

  4. Department of Human Oncology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

    Jeffrey Brower

Authors
  1. Jennifer Novak
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  2. Jason Liu
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  3. Xiaoke Zou
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  4. Tariq Abuali
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  5. Jessica Vazquez
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  6. Ronny Kalash
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  7. Brett Evans
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  8. Matthew J. Loscalzo
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  9. Virginia Sun
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  10. Jeffrey Brower
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  11. Arya Amini
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Jennifer Novak, Tariq Abuali, Arya Amini, and Jeffrey Brower. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Jennifer Novak, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Xiaoke Zou contributed to the statistical analysis.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Arya Amini.

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Ethics approval

This study was approved by the institutional review board at our institution.

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Informed consent to participate in the study was obtained from participants.

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Not applicable.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Novak, J., Liu, J., Zou, X. et al. Radiation oncologist perceptions of therapeutic cannabis use among cancer patients. Support Care Cancer 29, 5991–5997 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06160-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-021-06160-6

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