text_1: Cannabis Derivative Cannabidiol Reduces Seizures in Severe Epilepsy Disorder
text_2: This release from the NYU Langone Medical Center describes a randomized placebo controlled clinical trial of children and adolescents with Dravet syndome, an extreme form of epilepsy, who often don’t respond to other drugs. The release provides a very good description of the benefits and the side effects that were reported from the trial. It adds cautions and nuance that are missing from many news releases. But not included were the cost of the new drug (projected to be quite steep) and we think the release could have emphasized more that the children in the trial were already on seizure medications. When the cannabidiol (or a placebo) was added to the maintenance drug it alleviated seizures but also introduced a high degree of side effects. A CNN story on the study, which we also reviewed, had many of the same strengths as the news release (overall depth and detail on benefits), but it similarly skipped cost information. Dravet syndrome is a rare form of epilepsy that generally begins in a child’s first year but is a life-long condition, according to the Epilepsy Foundation. Currently, treatments for this condition are marginal and new therapies addressing its symptoms would be welcome. The trial showed reduced seizures in this difficult-to-treat type of epilepsy compared to patients given a placebo. The lead researcher stressed that the study only tested cannabidiol in patients “with especially severe forms who have not responded to numerous medications”  and that the drug is not a panacea for other forms of epilepsy.