Impact of opioid use on health care utilization and survival in patients with newly diagnosed stage IV malignancies.

Purpose: Patients with advanced cancers frequently experience pain. Opioids are commonly prescribed to treat cancer-related pain, but their use might be associated with undesirable consequences including adverse effects and tumor progression, resulting in increased heath care utilization and shorter survival. We examined these possibilities in a large cohort of patients diagnosed with ten common advanced malignancies.

A systematic review of the impact of pain on overall survival in patients with cancer.

Purpose: Pain commonly occurs in cancer patients, and has been associated with shorter survival. However, the importance of pain is less clear when analyzed with other known prognostic variables. This systematic review was performed to better understand how pain impacts overall survival (OS) in common cancers when key clinical variables are included in multivariate analysis.

Establishment of Personalized Pain Goals in Oncology Patients to Improve Care and Decrease Costs.

Purpose: Cancer-related pain is common, negatively affects quality of life and survival, and often requires treatment with opioid analgesics. Patient-reported data that describe the incidence and severity of pain, medication use, and patient satisfaction with care are lacking.

Methods: We analyzed 18 months of outpatient oncology clinic encounters from the electronic medical record to obtain data on pain levels and opioid and nonopioid treatments.