Medical Cannabis in Patients With Advanced Pancreatic and Colorectal Cancer
Trial Parameters
Brief Summary
Many patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer experience burdensome and difficult-to-treat symptoms. The impact of multiple symptoms (called "symptom burden") can negatively affect a patient's quality of life, decrease their ability to tolerate cancer treatments, and lead to worse survival. Current approaches to manage these cancer-associated symptoms often work poorly, with most patients reporting a moderate to severe symptom burden. Therefore, there is an urgent need for treatments that improve these symptoms in patients with advanced pancreatic and colorectal cancer, and data suggests that medical cannabis can help. In this research study, we are examining the usefulness of using medical cannabis in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and colorectal cancer to further study how cannabis can impact their symptom burden.
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria 1. Adults (aged 18 or more at enrollment) 2. Histologically or cytologically proven pancreatic or colorectal cancer. Histologies may include listing of adenocarcinoma, poorly differentiated carcinoma, or other pathology terms that treating oncologist would consider managing per usual standard of care of pancreas and colorectal adenocarcinoma. Neuroendocrine tumors are excluded in both cancer types. 3. Advanced stage (locally advanced or metastatic) pancreatic or colorectal cancer with no definitive plans for curative surgery in the next 3 months 4. Self-report of experiencing nausea, vomiting, anorexia, cachexia (wasting), or pain at least once in the 14 days prior to randomization 5. Plan to initiate or initiated within the past 2 weeks standard-of-care systemic chemotherapy (any regimen that does not include immunotherapy) at a participating institution with no prior systemic therapy in the prior 3 months (prior adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy is allowed as lo