When advanced breast cancer is in remission, which treatment works?

A team of medical researchers from the United Kingdom and the United States found that a patient with advanced breast cancer was in remission
by taking cannabinoids and psilocybin while receiving standard chemotherapy.
The case was published in a paper in the journal Pharmaceutical Science, Policy and Law, and the treatment case is described in detail below
.

Cannabinoids and psilocybin

Cannabinoids are extracts of the narcotic drug cannabis, and psilocybin is a hallucinogenic alkaloid
extracted from mushrooms.
In some preclinical studies, cannabinoids and psilocybin have shown antiproliferative, apoptosis, and antiangiogenesis capabilities, but how these compounds work has not yet been elucidated
.

Figure 1.
Potential anti-cancer mechanisms of cannabinoids

Although there is currently limited clinical evidence for the use of medical cannabis products and hallucinogens for the treatment of cancer, they are safe and effective in reducing cancer-related symptoms and alleviating the side effects of chemotherapy, including anxiety, depression, pain, nausea and vomiting
.
There have also been individual reports of self-administered use of medical marijuana helping lung cancer patients to regress
tumors.

Did the patient with advanced breast cancer below benefit from these adjuvant treatments? Let's take a look
.

Hemp oil and magic mushrooms, do they really work?

In 2018, a 49-year-old woman presents to the doctor
because of an abnormality found in a self-examination.
Imaging tests were performed to confirm invasive ductal carcinoma
.
The molecular immunohistochemistry results were ER+, PR-, HER2+, and the BRCA gene mutation was negative
.
The bones, liver, and lymph nodes are affected
.
Overall imaging findings indicate advanced breast cancer, and the overall treatment expectations are poor
.

Immediately after, the patient began standard chemotherapy with targeted drugs for HER2, including pastrozumab, trastuzumab, and docetaxel
.
In addition, she also adopted a ketogenic diet (for details on ketogenic diet, please refer to the article on cancer degree).

In addition, the patient, under the guidance of a therapist, begins to ingest cannabinoids and psilocybinoid
.

Figure 2.
Results of PET-CT imaging before the first round of treatment

In January 2019, after a few months of overall treatment, tests revealed that all of the patient's tumors had disappeared, doctors speculated that chemotherapy and targeted drugs worked, and it was unclear
what role the cannabinoids and psilocybin played.
Since the tumor disappeared, to alleviate the adverse reactions, the patient stopped chemotherapy and chose to continue taking cannabinoids and psilocybin.

Figure 3.
PET-CT of bone metastases before and after treatment

In August, the tumor did not recur and the patient reduced the cannabinoid dose by 50% and stopped psilocybinoid
.

In June 2020, a review found that the tumor had
returned.
The patient received chemotherapy again and continued to use cannabinoids and psilocybinoids
.
Until October 2021, the tumor was in a stable state
.
The patient's current condition has not been followed up and is unclear
.

revelation

For the treatment of tumors, researchers are constantly exploring and trying to help patients fight
the disease in various ways.
Just like the treatment case selected by the degree of cancer, we currently cannot judge the role of cannabinoids and psilocybin in the treatment, but those treatments that have achieved excellent efficacy are not obtained in such exploration and clinical trials again and again? In future anti-cancer research, whether relevant drugs will be extracted from these substances to achieve miraculous therapeutic effects is something we can continue to pay attention to
.

In this case, when the patient is diagnosed and the disease relapses, chemotherapy and targeted therapy
for HER2 are used first.
Therefore, whether cannabinoids and psilocybin have a certain auxiliary effect in the treatment process needs more research data to confirm
.

In addition, we should pay attention to screening some health products under the banner of anti-cancer and anti-cancer, and do not try them ourselves, so as not to cause damage to the body, and even affect the normal treatment in the later stage, and the gains outweigh the losses
.

Cancer, accompany you through every step of the fight against cancer!

Reference: Rayyan Zafar et al, Raising awareness: The implementation of medical cannabis and psychedelics used as an adjunct to standard therapy in the treatment of advanced metastatic breast cancer, Drug Science, Policy and Law (2022).

Click below to learn more about our clinical trial programs