Prevalence and incidence of chronic pain with or without neuropathic characteristics in patients with cancer

Bouhassira D, Luporsi E, Krakowski I. Pain 2017;158:1118–25.

A prospective observational study in France recruited 1805 patients with cancer attending outpatients for cancer treatment from 12 oncology units. A clinical examination, DN4 questionnaire and Brief Pain Inventory were used to detect and characterise the pain. Chronic pain was characterised as due to the tumour, cancer treatment or not related to cancer. The overall prevalence of chronic pain was reported as 28%, with 21% of these patients having characteristics of neuropathic pain, an overall prevalence of 5%. Pain with neuropathic characteristics was more commonly reported by patients with lung, breast or head and neck cancers. Patients with a neuropathic element to their pain reported a higher pain intensity …