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September 04, 2025
4 min read
Key takeaways:
- Researchers are investigating whether cannabis use can impact recovery from wounds associated with head and neck cancer surgery.
- Immunology data also may have an impact on other cancer types.
As cannabis use continues to increase in the U.S., researchers from The University of Oklahoma are investigating whether it impacts the way patients recover from surgery.
Lurdes Queimado, MD, PhD, professor of otolaryngology, and colleagues plan to enroll more than 200 individuals with head and neck cancer to determine whether cannabis use affects wound healing.
As cannabis use continues to increase in the U.S., researchers from The University of Oklahoma are investigating whether it impacts the way patients recover from surgery. Image: Adobe Stock.
Lurdes Queimado
“Our hypothesis is that cannabis use, in particular cannabis smoke, which is the most frequent mode of use, is going to increase wound complications and delay healing from surgery,” Queimado, who also directs the Tobacco Regulatory Science Lab at OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center’s TSET Health Promotion Research Center, told Healio.
The prospective trial will examine cannabis use through patient reports, as well as biochemically through blood tests.
Healio spoke with Queimado about what spurred the research, its potential for future impact, and more.
Healio: What prompted this study?
Queimado: Cannabis use has increased dramatically all over the world, but particularly in North America. About 15% of U.S. adults report current use of cannabis. That has surpassed reported alcohol or tobacco use. Among patients with cancer, those numbers are even higher.
There have been studies from several universities, including ours, that show that among patients with cancer, the rate of use is about 30% overall. In some universities, it’s as high as 40% for never-smokers and as high as 80% for current smokers. These data show that a large portion of patients with cancer at time of diagnosis or in survival are using cannabis, so it’s really important to understand its’ health implications.
Another aspect of it is there are many types of cannabis use. The most frequent of all, even among those that use it for medical purposes, is smoked cannabis. Smoked cannabis has a lot of chemical components, including some that are known to cause inflammation and carcinogenesis. So, the effects of smoked cannabis are probably going to be very different from just cannabinoids or CBD.
Healio: Why do you think cannabis will delay recovery?
Queimado: Our preliminary data suggest smoked cannabis increases inflammation and reduces immunity, which could delay wound healing and increase infections. Plus, there are data already out there supporting the hypothesis that cannabis use slows down surgery recovery and increases complications. The main difference between the studies previously published and our study is twofold.
One, our study is prospective and will control for tobacco use. Cannabis and tobacco use usually go hand-in-hand, thus it has been very difficult to separate the two. So, what really is the impact of cannabis smoking, and what is the impact of tobacco smoke? In our study, we are going to include groups that only smoke, groups that only use cannabis and groups that use both.
The other important difference is that we are going to validate participant reported use biochemically, this will uniquely strengthen our study. Most studies rely on patient reports — if the patient reports no cannabis use, then they are considered a non-cannabis user. In our case, we are going to validate the reported data by biochemical measuring cannabinoids and other cannabis and tobacco metabolites in the participant’s blood.
Healio: What are the study details?
Queimado: We are enrolling 220 patients with head and neck cancer who undergo surgery. We are going to follow them since diagnosis until 6-months post surgery. We will be documenting complications and speed of recovery. We will also be analyzing the effect of smoked cannabis on the patients’ systemic inflammation and immune cells. It will be a two-aim study. We expect to have some preliminary results within a year, so by 2026, but to have the study complete in 2027.
Healio: Why did you choose head and neck cancer?
Queimado: A lot of our patients are using cannabis, and a lot of them smoke. There is also an HPV association with head and neck cancer, and with the hypothesis that cannabis might reduce immune cell function, we expect to have a larger impact in this context.
Another reason to study head and neck cancer is the fact that head and neck cancer surgery compromises not just appearance, but also physiological function. Any complications for surgery are going to have higher impact, because swallowing and breathing are essential functions that are affected by the surgery. Anything with a negative impact in surgical wound healing in these areas could have dramatic consequences for patients.
Healio: Do you believe this research may impact other cancer types too?
Queimado: Yes. Our wound healing data will broadly impact all surgical fields from oncology to plastics. Moreover, because we are also prospectively studying inflammatory and immune changes, our findings will provide a solid foundation for many different areas of research and offer novel unique mechanistic insights to understand the health impacts of cannabis use, from cancer incidence and response to treatment, to immunological diseases.
Healio: Do you think results from this study will affect how we view cannabis use in 5 or 10 years?
Queimado: Yes. I think that we are going to find that different modes of cannabis use have completely different effects. For example, we might find that some specific cannabinoids have positive health impact, while smoked cannabis might have adramatic, negative impact on human health.
Healio: Is there anything else you would like to emphasize?
Queimado: Another implication of this study is that it’s probably going to affect regulations. Currently, the main mode of cannabis use is smoked, even among those using medical cannabis. Maybe this study will change that.
For more information:
Lurdes Queimado, MD, PhD, can be reached at lurdes-queimado@ou.edu.
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