“We hope it will be encouraging for our patients,” she told Medscape Medical News.
Although the cause of benign essential blepharospasm is poorly understood, it falls into the category of dystonia.
To see if it could work for blepharospasm, she and her colleagues recruited patients who had been treated unsuccessfully with botulinum toxin and were otherwise in good health.
THC is the component of cannabis that seemed to provide the benefit in other forms of dystonia, Zloto said.
For another 6 weeks, the researchers provided cannabis oil to both groups.
“When you think about yourself, if you have 60 attacks of spasm, compared to 90 attacks of spasm, it’s a lot,” Zloto said.
The placebo group also reported some similar symptoms, Zloto said, and no patients reported experiencing the psychoactive effects associated with recreational use of cannabis.
“Using these drops in conjunction with botulinum toxin seems to give very impressive results,” said Michael Yen, MD, an oculoplastic surgeon and professor of ophthalmology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, in an interview with Medscape Medical News.
His work has appeared in national magazines, in newspapers, on public radio, and on websites.