Archive for the ‘Sickle Cell Disease’ Category

BACKGROUND: The active ingredients of marijuana may have beneficial properties in the treatment of chronic pain and inflammation and is being used by sufferers of chronic pain and arthritis in some settings. Anecdotally, marijuana is believed by some sickle cell disease (SCD) patients to improve their health. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of marijuana smoking in the Jamaica Sickle Cell Cohort Study (JSCCS) in the years 2000 and 2004. The perception that marijuana use ameliorated the complications of SCD was also investigated.
METHODS: All patients in the JSCCS were invited to attend an annual review, and during the 2000 and 2004 reviews, participants with homozygous sickle cell (SS) disease and sickle cell haemoglobin-C (SC) disease were asked whether they smoked marijuana, and if they smoked, whether it was used for medicinal purposes related to SCD. The authors compared smoking prevalence by gender, disease, and year of review. The association of smoking with a measure of pain frequency was also examined.
RESULTS: The prevalence of marijuana smoking was higher among men and among SC participants. The proportion of either gender reporting smoking of marijuana increased in 2004 compared to 2000, and this use was not related to a simple measure of clinical severity of SCD.
CONCLUSIONS: Marijuana smoking is common in adults with SCD but its usage is unrelated to clinical severity of the disease.

Kingston, Jamaica: Smoking cannabis is far more prevalent among Jamaicans suffering from sickle cell disease (SCD) than among the general population, according to survey data published in the current issue of the West Indian Medical Journal. Investigators at the University of the West Indies in Kingston surveyed the cannabis smoking habits of 145 men and women with SCD. Researchers questioned patients’ use patterns in 2000 and then conducted a follow up survey in 2004. Among those surveyed in 2004, 19% of women and 65% of men with SCD reported smoking cannabis. By contrast, among the Jamaican population, only 10% of women and 37% of men report having ever smoked cannabis. Though Jamaicans with SCD used cannabis in greater numbers, authors did not attribute this increase exclusively to symptom management noting that only 6% of those surveyed associated their usage with combating the disease. “There was no suggestion that smokers and non-smokers had different pain profiles … [and] there was little difference between smokers and non-smokers in the median number of pain events,” authors concluded. Investigators did not assess whether there existed a possible link between the frequency of cannabis use and the amelioration of SCD complications among those surveyed. Anecdotal reports of SCD patients using cannabis therapeutically have been noted in the scientific literature. Most recently, a study published in the British Journal of Haematology found that 36% of SCD patients reported having used cannabis in the past 12 months to relieve symptoms of the disease including pain, anxiety, and depression. Sickle cell disease is a chronic condition that targets the body’s red blood cells and is characterized by episodic pain in the joints, fever, leg ulcers, and jaundice, among other symptoms. In the United States, SCD affects about one in 650 African Americans and about half as many Latin Americans.