SynthesisSupportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer2017
A systematic review of the impact of pain on overall survival in patients with cancer.
Synthesis in Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patient-Reported Outcomes as Prognostic Indicators for Overall Survival in Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.JAMA oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Alkaline phosphatase decline and pain response as predictors of overall survival benefit in patients treated with radium-223: a post hoc analysis of the REASSURE study.British journal of cancer · 2025Trial
- COMT Val158Met Affects the Analgesic Response to Acupuncture Among Cancer Survivors With Chronic Pain.The journal of pain · 2023Trial
- Herbal Topical Analgesic for Pain Management: Perspectives from Cancer Patients.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2021Trial
- Opioids and immunosuppression in patients with cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Review
- Cancer-related pain: A bidirectional modulator of cancer progression.Clinical and translational medicine · 2026Review
- Pain Disparities Among Asian Americans Affected by Cancer: The Role of Depressive Symptoms.Journal of palliative medicine · 2026Article
- Tumor-nerve crosstalk: peripheral mechanisms mediating bone tumor progression and cancer-induced bone pain.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- Disparities in Prescription Opioids Among a National Sample of Adult Cancer Patients 2012-2021.Journal of racial and ethnic health disparities · 2025Article
- Neuraxial Anesthesia and Cancer Recurrence Following Prostatectomy: Thinking Outside the Box.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Patient-reported pain severity is associated with shorter survival in older adults with newly diagnosed cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2025Article
- Review
- Unlocking the Potential of the Superficial Cervical Plexus Block in Chronic Pain Management: A Narrative Review and Single-Center, Retrospective Case Series.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Development of a predictive model for patients with bone metastases referred to palliative radiotherapy: Secondary analysis of a multicenter study (the PRAIS trial).Cancer medicine · 2024Observational
- Prognosis and risk factor assessment of patients with advanced lung cancer with low socioeconomic status: model development and validation.BMC cancer · 2024Observational
- Identification of 8 candidate microsatellite instability loci in colorectal cancer and validation of the ACVR2A mechanism in the tumor progression.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Patients' satisfaction with cancer pain treatment at adult oncologic centers in Northern Ethiopia; a multi-center cross-sectional study.BMC cancer · 2024Article
- Evidence-Based Nonpharmacological Symptom Management of Palliative Care in Advanced and Metastatic Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review.Florence Nightingale journal of nursing · 2024Article
- From pain to tumor immunity: influence of peripheral sensory neurons in cancer.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Opioid Nonadherence Risk Prediction of Patients with Cancer-Related Pain Based on Five Machine Learning Algorithms.Pain research & management · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposePain commonly occurs in cancer patients, and has been associated with shorter survival. However, the importance of pain is less clear when analyzed with other known prognostic variables. This systematic review was performed to better understand how pain impacts overall survival (OS) in common cancers when key clinical variables are included in multivariate analysis.
methodsA Medline search was completed to find studies examining the relationship between pain, clinical variables, and OS in patients with breast, colorectal, lung, or prostate cancer. Multivariate analysis included known prognostic variables including age, performance status, disease burden, and laboratory parameters.
resultsFifty studies met inclusion criteria. In patients with breast, colorectal, and lung cancer, pain was not a significant prognostic factor for OS on multivariate analysis in most studies. In contrast, several studies suggest that pain is an independent prognostic factor for OS in advanced prostate cancer, even when relevant clinical prognostic variables are included. However, analgesic use was often used as a surrogate for prostate cancer pain, making it difficult to determine whether pain or opioid exposure was more important in influencing survival.
conclusionsPain may be associated with shorter survival in patients with cancer, but the mechanism for this relationship is unknown. The available evidence is insufficient to definitively determine if pain independently influences survival in patients with breast, colorectal, or lung cancer. The majority of studies in prostate cancer show pain to be an independent prognostic factor for OS, and often also incorporate opioid analgesic use in multivariate analysis. Prospective studies are needed to better understand how opioid utilization and pain may affect cancer progression and survival in diverse malignancies.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.