IMMUNOTHERAPY AND CANCER (UNSPECIFIED)

2025

• In people with cancer treated with immunotherapy, this study of 1,600+ people found that cannabis use did not interfere with therapy efficacy
  The Impact of Cannabis Use on Patient Outcomes Post Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy: The DiRECT Cohort
  https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2025.43.16_suppl.12081
  This is a reassuring study for cancer clinicians because one of the fears of using cannabinoids in combination with drugs that harness the immune system is that with the well-known ability of cannabinoids to suppress the immune system (though it's complicated), the immunosuppression could interfere with how well the drugs work. But in this rather sizable study of people with cancer using immunotherapy, the cannabis didn’t cause problems.
• Impact of cannabinoids on cancer outcomes in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40109334/
• From Dr. Joe Goldstrich's book The Cannabis Cancer Connection:
  • The use of medical cannabis concomitantly with immune checkpoint inhibitors in non-small cell lung cancer: A sigh of relief: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959804922017671
    • His interpretation of the data of this 2022 Israeli study shows a marked decrease in the overall survival of those patients who used cannabis with immunotherapy.
  • Cannabis Impacts Tumor Response Rate to Nivolumab in Patients with Advanced Malignancies: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30670598/
  • The effect of concomitant cannabinoids during immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment of advanced stage malignancy: https://ascopubs.org/doi/10.1200/JCO.2020.38.15_suppl.e15064
  • Cannabis Consumption Used by Cancer Patients during Immunotherapy Correlates with Poor Clinical Outcome: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32872248/

2024

• Immunotherapy and cannabis: A Harmful drug interaction or reefer madness? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11011043/