1 Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
2 Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
3 Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
4 Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
5 Department of Psychology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
6 Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA, USA.
7 Department of Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.
8 Department of Pediatric Medicine, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA.

Change in Pain Status and Subsequent Opioid and Marijuana Use Among Long-Term Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer.

JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2020 Dec; 4(6):pkaa070

Authors: Huang IC, Alberts NM, Buckley MG, Li Z, Ehrhardt MJ, Brinkman TM, Allen J, Krull KR, Klosky JL, Greene WL, Srivastava DK, Robison LL, Hudson MM, Anghelescu DL

Abstract

We evaluated pain status change and associations with subsequent opioid/marijuana use among 1208 adult survivors of childhood cancer. Pain status and opioid/marijuana were self-reported at baseline and follow-up evaluation (mean interval = 4.2?years). Over time, 18.7% of survivors endorsed persistent/increasing significant pain; 4.8% and 9.0% reported having used opioids and marijuana at follow-up. Persistent/increased (vs none/decreased) pain, persistent/increased (vs none/decreased) anxiety, and lack of health insurance increased odds of subsequent opioid use by 7.69-fold (95% confidence interval [CI]?=?3.71 to 15.95), 2.55-fold (95% CI?=?1.04 to 6.24), and 2.50-fold (95% CI?=?1.07 to 5.82), respectively. Persistent/increased (vs none/decreased) depression increased odds of subsequent marijuana use by 2.64-fold (95% CI?=?1.10 to 6.33).

PMID: 33409451 [PubMed]