The overall goals of this research is to describe the 1) natural history of current use and disposition of medical cannabis products including Cannabidiol (CBD) products, being administered to children as standard of care for the treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), 2) understand the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamics of medical cannabis products and 3) provide educational feedback on what is learned to families and care providers to provide evidenced based dosing guidance for these products to the pediatric community.
Part 1 of the study will consist of building a patient registry. Eligible patients will be identified and consented for study participation.Parents/legal guardians will be asked the survey related questions from Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), personality structure questionnaire (PSQ), Assessment Battery for Children (ABC2), Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF2), and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED) (parent version) if appropriate and ASHD5 Rating for either 5-10 year old or 11-17 year old. The description of each survey is below with a link to more information to the ASHD5. All additional questionnaires are already validated by the Institutional Review Board (IRB).
Registry information (as detailed below) will be gathered and entered into the registry.Each subject will be re-contacted approximately every 4-8 weeks to ask whether medications (cannabis related or other) have changed, efficacy/side effects have changed, or there have been changes in care or medical history. These new data will be recorded in the registry. Subjects may continue in the study for the duration of medical cannabis use, until they remove themselves from the study, or the study closes. All data will remain coded with a Master log of Subject identification numbers (IDs).
Part 2 of the study consists of pharmacokinetic (PK) evaluation of select subjects.
PK sampling of a select formulation will begin once 10 subjects who are consuming the same product formulation are enrolled into the Registry and have consented to PK sampling. Ongoing PK evaluation of additional products will occur once an additional 10 consenting subjects who are consuming the same formulation are enrolled in Part 1 for a maximum of 20 subjects per formulation. Subjects will have the opportunity to opt in or out of Part 2 upon the initial informed consent process for Part 1.
Part 3 of study related activities will include analysis and summary of the data on approximately a six month basis.
The investigative team will provide study participants with coded summary statistics of medical cannabis products use in the region (either through email, postal mail). This will also be presented at a community-based meeting that all study participants are invited to attend. The study team recognized that participation in a community event will result in loss of de-identification, but also feel that this will occur on a voluntary basis for all study participants.
The study team hypothesizes that the community educational programs will provide study participants an opportunity to connect with others in the community, share concerns, learn from others and allow the development of community-based support systems.
