Managing childhood cancer pain into survivorship: recognition and emerging principles

Continual refinement and further stratification of childhood cancer treatment has led to increased survivorship with recognized improvements in many long-term health outcomes. Despite this progress, persisting pain prevalence in childhood cancer survivors is increasing and emerging as a significant long-term health concern.

Currently, there is no guidance on how to approach and manage persisting pain in survivors of childhood cancer.

Clinicians should work with children and young people to optimize the management of pain and other symptoms on treatment. Focusing on an early post treatment screening for pain and other symptoms (including sleep and fatigue), and the role of on-going analgesic use. Follow-up should offer a multidisciplinary approach, aimed at lessening reliance on pharmacological approaches to pain management, addressing psychological concerns and promoting increased physical activity. The onus is on clinicians to mitigate the long-term risk of pharmacological reliance, particularly opioid dependency, in patients leaving their care and heading into adulthood. In this article, we highlight the emerging evidence of persisting pain in survivors of childhood cancer as a significant long-term health outcome and consider some initial principles of management.