Pain in Long-Term Cancer Survivors: Prevalence and Impact in a Cohort Composed Mostly of Breast Cancer Survivors.

Simple Summary: Although cancer survival is increasing and many survivors report having to endure pain, its prevalence and consequences have received little attention. We found that pain is associated with reduced quality of life as well as diminished emotional and professional performance in long-term cancer survivors. In addition, a neuropathic component often goes underdiagnosed and/or undertreated. Adopting appropriate neuropathic pain diagnostic tools should be standard clinical practice and targeting the neuropathic component seems to be a good, yet underused therapeutic approach which has the potential to improve cancer survivors' health outcomes. Cancer survival is becoming more common which means that there is now a growing population of cancer survivors, in whom pain may be common. However, its prevalence has hardly been addressed systematically. We aimed to assess the prevalence and explore the pathophysiology and impact of pain on health outcomes in cancer survivors. We conducted a retrospective–prospective cohort study in cancer-free patients diagnosed with cancer at least five years before the study start date. We used multivariable regression to establish the association of patients' cancer characteristics with pain, and then the association of patients' pain features with health outcomes and related symptoms. Between March and July 2021, 278 long-term cancer survivors were evaluated. Almost half of them (130/278, 46.8%) had pain, of whom 58.9% had a probable neuropathic component, but only 18 (13.8%) were taking specific drugs for neuropathic pain. A history of surgery-related pain syndrome in breast cancer patients was more than twice as frequent in the pain cohort. Post-chemotherapy and post-radiotherapy pain syndromes were uncommon. Pain was associated with lower QoL, emotional functioning, professional performance, and disability scores. Pain is a frequent health determinant in cancer survivors. Referral to specialised pain services may be a reasonable move in some cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]