Among lung cancer survivors with persistent opioid use during long-term survivorship, more than 90% received their first opioid prescription prior to their lung cancer diagnosis.
Cohort (n=1,176)
Yes
What are the patterns of opioid use during the first year of long-term lung cancer survivorship and when did they start?
An overwhelming proportion of lung cancer survivors with persistent or intermittent opioid use during long-term survivorship initiated opioid therapy prior to their cancer diagnosis.
Abstract Introduction: Lung cancer survivors had a high rate of long-term opioid use. Prolonged opioid use was associated with reduced survival and increased recurrence. It is unknown to what extent opioids initiated during cancer treatment accounted for long-term use. This study aims to characterize the patterns of opioid use in the first year of lung cancer long-term survivorship (LTS) and the history of opioid prescriptions (Rxs) by such patterns. Method: We used the 2010-19 SEER-Medicare linked data to identify a sample of lung cancer survivors enrolled in traditional Medicare Parts A a gap of ≥30 days ends the episode. Results: 1,176 survivors were identified with ≥1 opioid Rxs in the first year of LTS. Clustering identified three groups: “persistent use” (N=301, 26%), “intermittent use” (N=176, 15%), and “sporadic use” (N=699, 60%), with median days of opioid possession of 343, 168, and 10, respectively. More than 90% of the persistent-use group had their first opioid Rx before lung cancer diagnosis. There was a sharp gradient across the 3 groups in percentage with first 30- or 90- day episode before cancer diagnosis (Table). Conclusions: An overwhelming proportion of survivors with persistent or intermittent opioid Rxs during first year of LTS started opioid therapies and, to a less extent, long-term opioid therapies, prior to lung cancer diagnosis. Citation Format: Ziwei Zhu, Yiye Zhang, Hao Zhang, Rulla Tamimi, Yuhua Bao. Persistent opioid use during long-term lung cancer survivorship: When did it start abstract. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2026; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2026 Apr 17-22; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2026;86(7 Suppl):Abstract nr 5419.
Zhu et al. (Fri,) conducted a cohort in Lung cancer (n=1,176). Opioid therapy was evaluated on Patterns of opioid use in the first year of long-term survivorship and history of opioid prescriptions. Among lung cancer survivors with persistent opioid use during long-term survivorship, more than 90% received their first opioid prescription prior to their lung cancer diagnosis.