New data on opioid use disorder and risk of overdose in adolescent and young adult disease-free survivors prescribed opioids after cancer treatment.

Abstract

The study by Chao et al. examines the prevalence of long-term and high-dose opioid therapy, opioid use disorder (OUD), and overdoses among 2-year adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors. These data provide extremely important insight for clinicians making complex pain management decisions in the treatment of disease-free young adults with cancer pain. Chao et al. demonstrated that cancer survivors were at a lower OUD risk than age matched controls. Although the data are very reassuring, the authors make an extremely important conclusion that risk-stratified monitoring of cancer-free survivors on opioids and better understanding of the risks of OUD in AYA cancer survivors is paramount.