Did CBD shrink this woman’s ovarian cancer? Chemo-resistant tumors virtually ‘disappeared’ after surgery and unproven cannabis treatment
- An UC San Diego case study reveals an unnamed woman’s ovarian tumors all but disappeared within a year of starting a therapy of CBD and a nut oil
- Her particular ovarian cancer is rare and chemo usual doesn’t work against it
- After talking with her doctors she had surgery and started the experimental therapy in April 2017 and her tumors were ‘normalized’ by 2018
- In animal and lab experiments, cannabis has shown some promising anti-cancer properties – but is totally unproven and not to be taken alone in most cases
Doctors claim a woman has been virtually ‘cured’ her ovarian cancer – after shunning traditional treatment and taking CBD oil and apricot extract instead.
The ‘dramatic response’ has been documented by surgeons at the University of California, San Diego.
Most doctors warn against eschewing traditional treatments for alternative therapies, but are open to complementary alternative medicine, often referred to as CAM.
But after being diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer that responds poorly to treatment, one 81-year-old woman elected to have surgery, but forego standard chemo.
Instead she started on a regimen of cannabidiol (CBD) and amygdaline, a bitter substance found in fruits that turns to a form of cyanide thought to kill cancer cells.
By November 2018, to the doctors’ amazement, the unnamed woman’s tumors had all but disappeared, they reported last month in the journal Gynecologic Oncology Reports.
For most patients with most cancers, it would be ill-advised to use alternative therapies in the place of standard treatment, but this unique scenario could provide unique insights into potentials for CBD in oncology.
A CT scan of the woman’s pelvis reveals the unidentified woman’s series of tumors after she’d had surgery, but before she’s started her experimental treatment regimen
Over the next year, while taking CBD and a toxic nut oil, the woman’s tumors shrunk considerably, raising questions about alternative treatments among her doctors
UNIQUE CIRCUMSTANCES MEANT CHEMO WAS UNLIKELY TO HELP
The woman went to see her GP in March 2017, initially suspecting a hernia.
By April 2017 she’d been diagnosed with ‘low grade serous ovarian cancer’, aka LGSOC, a relatively rare form of ovarian cancer that often doesn’t respond well to chemotherapy.
She had ‘multiple’ tumors, ranging from 7 mm to 7cm in size and referred to the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
But Dr Ramez Eskander says: ‘After extensive counseling, the patient declined all interventions due to concerns regarding quality of life and treatment toxicity.’
Instead she, ‘elected to pursue alternative therapy’ and started taking CBD oil – aka ‘cannabidiol’ – each evening, as well as ‘Laetrile’ or amygdalin tablets – which contain a compound found in the seeds of certain fruits, such as apricots, and thought by some to have cancer-fighting properties.
And what happened next stunned the medics.
SCANS SHOW REMARKABLE TUMOR SHRINKAGE IN A MATTER OF MONTHS
By July 2017, CT scans showed a decrease in the size of the tumors.
The scans were repeated in September and November of the same year, and ‘continued to show a dramatic reduction in her disease burden, with near complete resolution of all previously identified lesions’.
‘On her most recent interval assessment in December 2018 she continues to show a response to therapy,’ Dr Eskander says.
Surgeons also monitored the cancer through what’s known as ‘CA125’ blood tests, which are also common for patients in the UK.
A high level of CA125 in your blood could be a sign of ovarian cancer.
At the start of the woman’s treatment journey, her CA125 score was almost 80. By November 2018, it had ‘normalized’ to around 10.
BOTH ALTERNATIVE COMPOUNDS HAVE SHOWN PROMISE – BUT HAVE NOT BEEN PROVEN
Dr Eskander adds: ‘In this case report, we present the case of a female patient who demonstrated disease response after declining standard therapy and taking a combination of Laetrile and CBD oil.
‘Previous clinical trials in humans have demonstrated no therapeutic effect in cancer patients taking Laetrile,’ he said.
In petri dish experiements, amygdalin has appeared to have some properties that could kill cancer cells, but that hasn’t proven to be the case in animal experiments – though there has been renewed interest in the compound in recent years.
‘However, basic science studies have identified cannabinoid receptors in ovarian cancer as potential therapeutic targets for cannabinoid use in treating malignancy,’ says Dr Eskander.
Lab and animal experiments have indeed shown some promise, but scientists caution that these aren’t enough o say that CBD has antitumor effects in humans.
However her improvements may be explained, the size of the woman’d tumors nose-dived after surgery and alternative therapy reaching ‘normalized’ levels in a matter of months, a graph of her tumor volume shows
‘This area remains under study, and this case highlights the importance of communication between physicians and their patients regarding use of alternative therapies.’
CBD oil is extracted from cannabis plants but contains only trace amounts of the high-giving chemical ‘tetrahydrocannabinol’, resulting in a legal product.
It’s sold in the UK and US as a super-food supplement and powerful antioxidant said to promote health and wellbeing.
Of course the case report is welcome news to the the CBD industry – which is worth $813 million in the US alone – and to UK CBD oil brand CBD Armour.
He says: ‘Until we have a wealth of thorough, robust and peer-reviewed scientific studies into CBD oil, it’s impossible for us to know definitively what health benefits it might have.
‘But what we do know for sure is that many of our customers report improvements to things such as pain relief, or for anxiety and sleep promotion.
While CBD oil is legal, Laetrile is mired in controversy and banned from being sold in the UK and US.
Laetrile contains cyanide, a poison and can cause serious side effects.
Surgery had rid the woman of some of her cancer, but the mysterious shrinking of her tumors thereafter suggest that the very experimental treatment might have helped her overcome the disease after sugery.
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