Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2020 Aug 13:2020:3902740.
doi: 10.1155/2020/3902740. eCollection 2020.

Potential Pharmacokinetic Drug-Drug Interactions between Cannabinoids and Drugs Used for Chronic Pain

Marta Vázquez  1 , Natalia Guevara  1 , Cecilia Maldonado  1 , Paulo Cáceres Guido  2 , Paula Schaiquevich  3   4
Affiliations
Review

Potential Pharmacokinetic Drug-Drug Interactions between Cannabinoids and Drugs Used for Chronic Pain

Marta Vázquez et al. Biomed Res Int. .

Abstract

Choosing an appropriate treatment for chronic pain remains problematic, and despite the available medication for its treatment, still, many patients complain about pain and appeal to the use of cannabis derivatives for pain control. However, few data have been provided to clinicians about the pharmacokinetic drug-drug interactions of cannabinoids with other concomitant administered medications. Therefore, the aim of this brief review is to assess the interactions between cannabinoids and pain medication through drug transporters (ATP-binding cassette superfamily members) and/or metabolizing enzymes (cytochromes P450 and glucuronyl transferases).

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Abubakar A. R., Chedi B. A. Z., Mohammed K. G., Haque M. Drug interaction and its implication in clinical practice and personalized medicine. National Journal of Physiology, Pharmacy and Pharmacology. 2015;5(5):343–349. doi: 10.5455/njppp.2015.5.2005201557. - DOI
    1. Gerber W., Steyn J. D., Kotzé A. F., Hamman J. H. Beneficial pharmacokinetic drug interactions: a tool to improve the bioavailability of poorly permeable drugs. Pharmaceutics. 2018;10(3):p. 106. doi: 10.3390/pharmaceutics10030106. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Andreae M. H., Carter G. M., Shaparin N., et al. Inhaled cannabis for chronic neuropathic pain: a meta-analysis of individual patient data. The Journal of Pain. 2015;16(12):1221–1232. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2015.07.009. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Vučković S., Srebro D., Vujović K. S., Vučetić Č., Prostran M. Cannabinoids and pain: new insights from old molecules. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 2018;9, article 1259 doi: 10.3389/fphar.2018.01259. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Whiting P. F., Wolff R. F., Deshpande S., et al. Cannabinoids for medical use: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2015;313(24):2456–2473. doi: 10.1001/jama.2015.6358. - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms