Opioid use among cancer patients does not appear to be leading to the steep increase of overdoses seen in the general public, according to a study by Duke Cancer Institute researchers.
The study, presented to the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in Phoenix, found that death from opioids are 10 times less likely to occur in cancer patients compared to the general population.
During a 10-year period from 2006-16, the researchers found that opioid deaths in the general population increased from 5.33 to 8.97 per 100,000 people. For cancer patients, the rate rose from 0.52 to 0.66 per 100,000.
In all, 895 cancer patients died as a result of opioids over that period, compared to 193,500 in the non-cancer population.
Researchers used de-identified death certificate data from the National Center for Health Statistics, which cites one underlying cause of death and up to 20 contributing causes, as well as demographic data.
All deaths due to opioids were included from 2006-2016; if present, cancer was noted as a contributing cause. Opioid death incidence was calculated from both the U.S. and estimated cancer survivor population.
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