Chronic Pain in U.S. Cancer Survivors
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Jiang et al found that 34.6% of cancer survivors in the United States report chronic pain and 16.1% report high-impact chronic pain.
The study included data from 4,526 adult cancer survivors identified from 59,770 participants in the 2016–2017 National Health Interview Survey. Chronic pain was defined as pain on most days or every day in the past 6 months, and high-impact chronic pain was defined as chronic pain limiting life or work activities on most days or every day in the past 6 months.
Key Findings
Among 4,526 survivors, 1,648 (34.6%) reported having chronic pain and 768 (16.1%) reported having high-impact chronic pain.These figures yield prevalence estimates of approximately 5.39 million survivors with chronic pain and 2.51 million survivors with HICP in the United States.
No significant differences in prevalence of chronic pain or high-impact chronic pain were found for age, sex, marital status, or region groups. However, a higher prevalence of chronic pain and high-impact chronic pain was reported among patients with less than a high school education (adjusted prevalence = 39.2% for chronic pain and 18.5% for high-impact chronic pain), low household income (44.6% and 22.8%), public insurance for those aged 18 to 64 years (43.6% and 27.1%), or no paid employment (38.5% and 20.4%).
The adjusted prevalence of chronic pain was highest among survivors of bone (54.0%), kidney (52.3%), throat/pharynx (47.9%), and uterine (44.5%) cancers. Time since diagnosis was not significantly associated with prevalence of chronic pain or high-impact chronic pain.
The investigators concluded: “[T]he prevalence of chronic pain and [high-impact chronic pain] is high among cancer survivors compared with that in the general U.S. population, thereby suggesting the presence of important unmet needs in the large and growing cancer survivorship community.”
Changchuan Jiang, MD, MPH, of the Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital and Mount Sinai West Hospital, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is the corresponding author for the JAMA Oncology article.
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit jamanetwork.com.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
