Evidence from a US retrospective study including 1571 patients showed that CHS affects up to 6% of patients consulting for recurrent vomiting in emergency departments.3 Moreover, among regular cannabis smokers, about one third of them reports hot showers or baths as a means to relieve nausea and/or vomiting.10 Extrapolating those results to the population of the United States, it is estimated that 2.1-3.3 million people might suffer from CHS annually.10 In Colorado, which legalised cannabis in 2009, visits to emergency departments for cyclic vomiting doubled after legalisation.11 An estimated 182 million people worldwide were cannabis consumers in 2013, increasing to 192 million in 2016,12 13 therefore CHS may represent an important diagnosis to consider in any patient consulting for recurrent vomiting.
The above article from The BMJ refers to the next 2 articles below.
We constructed a case series, the largest to date, of patients diagnosed with CH at our institution. Inclusion criteria were determined by reviewing all PubMed indexed journals with case reports and case series on CH. The institution's electronic medical record was searched from January 1, 2005, through June 15, 2010. Patients were included if there was a history of recurrent vomiting with no other explanation for symptoms and if cannabis use preceded symptom onset. Of 1571 patients identified, 98 patients (6%) met inclusion criteria.
We seek to estimate the prevalence of CHS in a population of patients presenting to a socio‐economically and racially diverse urban Emergency Department of a public hospital. This study consisted of a questionnaire administered to a convenience sample of patients presenting to the ED of the oldest public hospital in the United States. ...
Among 2127 patients approached for participation, 155 met inclusion criteria as smoking 20 or more days per month. Among those surveyed, 32.9% (95% CI, 25.5–40.3%) met our criteria for having experienced CHS. If this is extractable to the general population, approximately 2.75 million (2.13–3.38 million) Americans may suffer annually from a phenomenon similar to CHS.
