Researchers used the National Health Interview Survey, a large national representative dataset from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to estimate the prevalence of chronic pain among cancer survivors. They found that about 35 percent of cancer survivors have chronic pain, representing 5.39 million patients in the United States.
"This study provided the first comprehensive estimate of chronic pain prevalence among cancer survivors," said corresponding author Changchuan Jiang, MD, MPH, a medical resident at Mount Sinai St. Luke's and Mount Sinai West. "These results highlight the important unmet needs of pain management in the large, and growing cancer survivorship community."