Managing Pain in Patients and Survivors: Challenges Within the United States Opioid Crisis.

Advances in cancer treatment have led to a growing number of survivors. At least 40% of those survivors live with chronic pain and need pain control medication. This coincides with an epidemic of opioid misuse and overdose deaths, resulting in restrictive practices that can impact patients who experience severe pain. Oncologists and other healthcare professionals who treat patients with cancer need to balance considerations of opioid misuse with effective pain control and become better educated about risk factors and management of opioids in cancer survivors.