Moryl N, et al. - In this report, researchers sought to delineate the results of the analyses of patient reported outcomes (PROs) and patient-related electronic health record data collected under standard of care from cancer patients at outpatient pain management clinics of Anesthesiology and Palliative Care at the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center. Here, they identified the criticality of considering sex and age as predictors of opioid use in attempting to understand PROs and their relationship to pain management.

• Patient characteristics, treatments, and outcomes for a prospective cohort of 1534 chronic pain cancer patients who were seen at outpatient pain service clinics were analyzed.
• Reports of average pain intensity (Brief Pain Inventory) as mild by 24.6% of patients, moderate by 41.5%, and severe by 33.9% were identified.
• Researchers noticed that patient reported average percent pain relief and health state (EQ-5D) were inversely related to average pain intensity category, while measures of pain interference, number of worst pain locations, and physical and psychological distress had direct relation with pain intensity category.
• Eighty-six percent of patients received an opioid at one or more clinic encounters.
• As per regression analysis, being a male or being younger (<=65 yrs. of age) was associated with a greater likelihood of an opioid ordered.
• In this study, being male approximately doubled the likelihood of a higher dose being ordered than being female.
• Patients receiving opioids reported significantly more pain relief than no opioid patients in bivariate analysis.
• However, higher pain interference scores, lower index of health-state, and more physical distress were observed among patients receiving opioids than no opioid patients.
• Results thereby suggested the necessity for considering opioid use and dosage when attempting to understand PROs and factors affecting pain management.