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Despite the common use of opioids in clinical settings, new and persistent opioid prescriptions have declined among patients both with and without cancer, according to new findings presented by Baum et al at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 1592). However, the declines in opioid use among...
There are “three main messages” to be gleaned from a study about emergency department visits and unplanned hospitalizations among patients with cancer, the study’s lead author, Amir Alishahi Tabriz, MD, PhD, MPH, told The ASCO Post. Dr. Alishahi is Assistant Member, Department of Health Outcomes...
Emergency department (ED) visits by patients with cancer increased by 67.1% between the start of 2012 and the end of 2019, compared with an increase of just 7.5% in cancer incidence, according to a recent study in JAMA Network Open.1 Factors identified as possible explanations for the...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Ryu et al, the phase III portion of the NRG Oncology/RTOG 0631 trial showed no benefit in pain relief with use of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) vs conventional external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in patients with one to three sites of vertebral metastases. Study...
Research shows that pain is a common byproduct of cancer and its treatment, with approximately 55% of patients undergoing active treatment experiencing pain, and more than 66% of patients with advanced disease experiencing pain. According to the ASCO guideline on the use of opioids for adults with...
Pain is highly prevalent in people with cancer throughout the disease trajectory. Often persisting for years after initial diagnosis and undertreated, it is associated with poor functional, mental, and cancer-related outcomes.1 Consequently, the need for effective pain management strategies has...
Treating high-risk, asymptomatic bone metastases with radiation may reduce painful complications and hospitalizations and possibly extend overall survival in people whose cancer has spread to multiple sites, a phase II clinical trial suggests. Results of the multicenter, randomized trial were...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Hu et al found decreases in the rates of opiate prescription and potential misuse/substance use disorders among survivors of childhood cancer following the March 2016 release of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) opioid-prescribing guideline....
New, long-term use of opioids after lung cancer surgery was linked to a 40% increased risk of death from any cause within the following 2 years, according to findings published by Oh et al in the journal Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine. Persistent postoperative pain has been reported in up...
Opioids are a cornerstone of cancer pain management, but there is a lack of consensus on how to treat pain patients with cancer who also have struggled with opioid use disorder or prescription opioid misuse. In a study published by Fitzgerald Jones et al in JAMA Oncology, researchers outlined...
Patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiation therapy may be less likely to require opioids or a feeding tube if they received a higher dose of prophylactic gabapentin before their treatment, findings from a team of radiation oncologists showed. Their report, published by Ma et al in JAMA ...
Guest Editor’s Note: Pain is a debilitating symptom experienced by many patients with cancer that negatively impacts their quality of life. Massage therapy, historically used for relaxation and pain relief, plays an important supportive role in oncology settings. In this installment of The ASCO...
In 2015, an unprecedented phenomenon occurred in the United States: according to the World Bank Group, the nation’s average life expectancy fell from 78.8 years in 2014 to 78.7 years in 2015, then to 78.5 years in 2017. The last time our life expectancy registered a similar decline was in the years ...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1999 to 2019, nearly 247,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription opioids in the United States. According to the CDC, the problem can be broken into three waves. The first began with an increase in prescribing...
When added to regular screening and guidelines, evidence-based interventions implemented at the patient, health professional, and service levels did not significantly improve cancer pain, according to research led by Melanie Lovell, MBBS, PhD, Medical Head of Palliative Care at HammondCare and...
Levorphanol was associated with improved pain and symptom control in patients with advanced cancer, according to data from an early phase I trial, reported by Akhila Reddy, MD, at the 2021 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO)...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Halpern et al found that cancer survivors with pain had worse employment and financial outcomes than did those reporting no pain. Study Details The study used data from 1,213 adult survivors identified from the 2016–2017 Medical Expenditure...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Enzinger et al found that the prescription of opioids for cancer pain dropped markedly in the recent past among patients with poor-prognosis disease near the end of life, with the frequency of pain-related emergency department visits...
In a Canadian/Australian phase II/III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Arjun Sahgal, MD, and colleagues found that stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) produced a higher complete pain response rate vs conventional external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in patients with painful spinal metastases. ...
Seeing an opportunity to safely reduce the number of opioid doses prescribed to patients with cancer, researchers proposed a new pain management guideline for all patients undergoing surgery at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. The results from the first 6 months of that effort, reported by ...
A clinical trial in a racially diverse group of postmenopausal women with early breast cancer to study severe pain in the bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, and nerves caused by aromatase inhibitor treatment has found that the symptoms were more commonly reported in Black and Asian patients than...
In an interview study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Yael Schenker, MD, MAS, and colleagues identified challenges and measures for improvement cited by oncologists in the safe and effective prescribing of opioids for their patients with cancer-related pain. Study Details The investigators...
In the PEACE study, reported in JAMA Oncology, Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and colleagues found that both electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture significantly reduced pain severity vs usual care in cancer survivors with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Noninferiority of auricular acupuncture to...
Brittany A. Davidson, MD, of Duke University, discusses the development and validation of the GO-POP model (Gynecologic Oncology Predictor of Postoperative opioid use), an individualized patient-centered predictive tool designed to help avoid overprescribing pain medications (ID# 10253).
Some patients with metastatic breast cancer are taking smaller doses of opioid prescriptions over decreased amounts of time, according to results published by Shen et al in Scientific Reports. Researchers said that the results indicate that clinicians may be more aware of the negative impacts of...
Women who undergo mastectomy with reconstructive surgery as part of breast cancer treatment may face the risk of persistent use of opioids and sedative-hypnotic drugs, according to data presented by Jacob Cogan, MD, and colleagues at the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (Abstract GS3-08)....
Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) was superior to conventional radiation therapy in reducing pain from spinal metastases in a phase II/III study reported at the virtual edition of the 2020 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting.1 More than twice as many patients...
Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) was superior to conventional radiation therapy in reducing pain from spinal metastases in a phase II/III study reported by Arjun Sahgal, MD, and colleagues at the 2020 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA 2). More...
Arjun Sahgal, MD, of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, discusses results of the first phase III trial to suggest that dose escalation with stereotactic body radiotherapy may be superior to conventional palliative radiotherapy in improving pain outcomes for patients with spinal bone metastases (Abstract LBA2).
James D. Murphy, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses the possible reasons for a decline in long-term opioid use in patients with cancer, even as short-term use is rising, as well as the racial and socioeconomic disparities of opioid use in this population (Abstract 187).
Oral cancer may be more likely to spread in patients experiencing high levels of pain, according to a team of researchers who found genetic and cellular clues as to why metastatic oral cancers are so painful. These findings were published by Bhattacharya et al in Scientific Reports. Researchers...
Pain is one of the most common byproducts of cancer and its treatment. Tumors, surgery, intravenous chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, supportive care therapies (such as bisphosphonates), and diagnostic procedures can all cause pain in patients and may contribute to symptoms of...
Changing from routinely prescribing opioids for patients who were having a lumpectomy or excisional biopsy to instead routinely prescribing nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs [NSAIDs] resulted in a sharply decreased opioid prescription rate with “no difference in the proportion of patients...
Pain is among the most difficult medical issues for oncologists to confront, said Tony L. Yaksh, PhD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego, during his keynote address at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium. Failure to adequately manage...
Due to COVID-19, this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting was convened using a virtual format. It was multidisciplinary, featuring more than 250 oral and 2,500 poster presentations from around the world in 24 disease-based and specialty tracks. Among the exciting talks in the session on symptoms and...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Fumiko Chino, MD, and colleagues found that while the incidence of opioid-related death has increased in both the general population and in patients with cancer in recent years, opioid-related death is far less common among individuals with ...
A recently published article by Schatz et al offers new clarity around the use of prescription opioids in pain management for people with a diagnosis or history of cancer and chronic pain. The joint publication, which appeared in both JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and...
Gopal K. Bajaj, MD, MBA, of the Inova Schar Cancer Institute, discusses the results of a small study that showed prophylactic gabapentin can be safely and effectively used to significantly reduce pain and the use of opioids in patients undergoing radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Hannah L. Rush, MBChB, of the Clinical Trials Unit at University College London, discusses an analysis of the STAMPEDE trial, which showed that patients treated with abiraterone had higher scores in global quality of life as well as in the physical, social, and role function domains and lower scores for pain and fatigue over the first 2 years than those receiving docetaxel (Abstract 14).
With nearly all patients who undergo treatment for cancer of the head and neck experiencing oral mucositis, effective pain control is one of the main goals of physicians and care teams. Looking to provide more effective relief for patients—while also reducing the need for opioid painkillers—a team...
For opioid-tolerant patients with advanced cancer experiencing pain, relief does not necessarily have to come from a higher dose of opioids, according to findings presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.1 The results of a retrospective analysis of 300 patients with advanced...
A vast majority of patients with cancer receiving opioids for the management of pain will adhere to the opioids as prescribed and will have no major difficulties with dose reduction and even treatment discontinuation if the pain syndrome resolves. However, about 20% of patients with cancer are at...
Richard T. Lee, MD, Associate Professor at Case Comprehensive Cancer Center and University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, discussed the abstract by Galloway et al at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium. He remarked that starting a new palliative care consultation can sometimes feel...
Pain may be one of the most common symptoms experienced by patients with cancer, but researchers are still unpacking its mysteries, with some surprising results. According to data presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium,1 greater social support may help mitigate pain in patients ...
In a study in residents of rural southwest Virginia reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Virginia T. LeBaron, PhD, and colleagues found that most patients with cancer never received a prescription opioid medication, that few patients were admitted to hospital for opioid use disorders, and...
In a German study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine, Jakob et al found that prescribed opioid use did not appear to increase risk of infection in hospitalized patients with cancer who developed treatment-associated neutropenia. According to the investigators, recent data have...
Barriers to accessing appropriate therapies to address the physical and psychological side effects of cancer treatment continue to persist for patients and survivors, according to results of the Survivor Views survey conducted by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)....
Pain is one of the most common symptoms associated with cancer and its treatment, and feelings of anxiety and depression can intensify the level of pain patients experience, according to the results from a study by Galloway et al that will be presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology...
Results of a survey reported by Singh et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice found that a population of primarily patients with cancer enrolled in Georgia’s medical marijuana program reported concerns about the legality of marijuana-related products and their ability to obtain the products. As...
In a study reported at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium and simultaneously published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Chineke et al found that a Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) initiated in collaboration with ASCO at the Georgia Cancer Center for Excellence (GCCE) at Grady Health...