Psilocybin-Assisted Early Palliative Care for Demoralization and Chronic Pain: An Open-Label Pilot Study.
medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences July 14, 2026 Ali J Zarrabi, Tanja Mletzko, George Grant et al.
In an open-label pilot study, psilocybin-assisted therapy (PAT) was tested in cancer patients with demoralization and chronic pain within a multidisciplinary palliative care setting. Ten of eleven enrolled participants received a single 25 mg oral dose of psilocybin with preparation, monitoring, and integration. The intervention was safe and feasible, with no serious adverse events and complete retention. All dosed participants found it highly acceptable; 70% rated it among the five most meaningful experiences of their lives and 60% among the five most spiritually significant. By study endpoint, 90% no longer met criteria for clinically significant demoralization and had pain scores below the enrollment threshold.