Opioids and Cancer Pain: Patients’ Needs and Access Challenges

Opioids are a mainstay in the treatment of cancer-related pain and end-of-life symptoms. This class of medications, long used by oncologists, is facing new scrutiny and restrictions as medication and illicit drug abuse in the United States has steadily increased, creating in recent years what has now been termed an “opioid epidemic.” Oncologists experience the opioid epidemic on several fronts: (1) treating patients who have legitimate pain needs in addition to their own addiction issues; (2) seeing patients suffer the repeated heartaches of having a family member struggling with addiction; and (3) now more commonly, facing barriers, restrictions, and hurdles to ensuring that an individual with cancer or cancer treatment– related pain is able to obtain adequate pain control.

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