Department of Plant Metabolomics, Faculty of Science, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Eur J Clin Pharmacol. 2013 Aug;69(8):1575-80. doi: 10.1007/s00228-013-1503-y. Epub 2013 Apr 16.
A growing number of countries are providing pharmaceutical grade cannabis to chronically ill patients. However, little published data is known about the extent of medicinal cannabis use and the characteristics of patients using cannabis on doctor's prescription. This study describes a retrospective database study of The Netherlands.
Complete dispensing histories were obtained of all patients with at least one medicinal cannabis prescription gathered at pharmacies in The Netherlands in the period 2003-2010. Data revealed prevalence and incidence of use of prescription cannabis as well as characteristics of patients using different cannabis varieties.
Five thousand five hundred forty patients were identified. After an initial incidence of about 6/100,000 inhabitants/year in 2003 and 2004, the incidence remained stable at 3/100,000/year in 2005-2010. The prevalence rate ranged from 5 to 8 per 100,000 inhabitants. Virtually all patients used some form of prescription medication in the 6 months preceding start of cannabis use, most particularly psycholeptics (45.5 %), analgesics (44.3 %), anti-ulcer agents (35.9 %) and NSAIDs (30.7 %). We found no significant association between use of medication of common indications for cannabis (pain, HIV/AIDS, cancer, nausea, glaucoma) and variety of cannabis used.
This is the first nationwide study into the extent of prescription of medicinal cannabis. Although the cannabis varieties studied are believed to possess different therapeutic effects based on their different content of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), no differences in choice of variety was found associated with indication.
越来越多的国家向慢性疾病患者提供药用级大麻。然而，关于药用大麻的使用范围以及按医生处方使用大麻的患者特征，已知的公开数据很少。本研究描述了对荷兰的一项回顾性数据库研究。
从荷兰药房收集 2003 年至 2010 年间至少有一张药用大麻处方的所有患者的完整配药记录。数据显示了处方大麻的使用流行率和发生率，以及使用不同大麻品种的患者特征。
共确定了 5540 名患者。2003 年和 2004 年初始发病率约为 6/100,000 居民/年后，2005 年至 2010 年发病率保持稳定在 3/100,000/年。流行率范围为每 100,000 居民 5 至 8 人。几乎所有患者在开始使用大麻前的 6 个月内都使用过某种形式的处方药物，最常见的是精神药物（45.5%）、镇痛药（44.3%）、抗溃疡药（35.9%）和 NSAIDs（30.7%）。我们没有发现使用大麻常见适应证的药物（疼痛、HIV/AIDS、癌症、恶心、青光眼）与大麻品种之间存在显著关联。
这是第一项关于药用大麻处方范围的全国性研究。尽管所研究的大麻品种据信因其四氢大麻酚（THC）和大麻二酚（CBD）含量不同而具有不同的治疗效果，但没有发现品种选择与适应证之间存在差异。
