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Case Reports
. 2017 Aug 10;18(8):1739.
doi: 10.3390/ijms18081739.

Speechlessness in Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome: Cannabis-Based Medicines Improve Severe Vocal Blocking Tics in Two Patients

Ewgeni Jakubovski  1 , Kirsten Müller-Vahl  2
Affiliations
Case Reports

Speechlessness in Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome: Cannabis-Based Medicines Improve Severe Vocal Blocking Tics in Two Patients

Ewgeni Jakubovski et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

We report the cases of two young German male patients with treatment-resistant Tourette syndrome (TS), who suffer from incapacitating stuttering-like speech disfluencies caused by vocal blocking tics and palilalia. Case 1: a 19-year old patient received medical cannabis at a dose of 1 × 0.1 g cannabis daily. Case 2: a 16-year old patient initially received dronabinol at a maximum dose of 22.4-33.6 mg daily. Both treatments provided significant symptom improvement of vocal blocking tics as well as of comorbid conditions and were well tolerated. Thus, cannabis-based medicine appears to be effective in treatment-resistant TS patients with vocal blocking tics.

Keywords: Tourette syndrome; blocking tics; cannabis; dysfluency; nabiximols; tics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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