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. 2024 Feb 2:17:501-508.
doi: 10.2147/JPR.S423318. eCollection 2024.

Measurement of the Association of Pain with Clinical Characteristics in Oral Cancer Patients at Diagnosis and Prior to Cancer Treatment

Caroline M Sawicki  1 , Malvin N Janal  2 , Sung Hye Gonzalez  3 , Angie K Wu  3 , Brian L Schmidt #  3   4   5 , Donna G Albertson #  3   4   5
Affiliations

Measurement of the Association of Pain with Clinical Characteristics in Oral Cancer Patients at Diagnosis and Prior to Cancer Treatment

Caroline M Sawicki et al. J Pain Res. .

Abstract

Aim: Oral cancer patients suffer pain at the site of the cancer, which degrades quality of life (QoL). The University of California San Francisco Oral Cancer Pain Questionnaire (UCSFOCPQ), the only validated instrument specifically designed for measuring oral cancer pain, measures the intensity and nature of pain and the level of functional restriction due to pain.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare pain reported by untreated oral cancer patients on the UCSFOCPQ with pain they reported on the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI), an instrument widely used to evaluate cancer and non-cancer pain.

Patients and methods: The correlation between pain measured by the two instruments and clinical characteristics were analyzed. Thirty newly diagnosed oral cancer patients completed the UCSFOCPQ and the BPI.

Results: Pain severity measurements made by the UCSFOCPQ and BPI were concordant; however, the widely used BPI average pain over 24 hours score appeared less sensitive to detect association of oral cancer pain with clinical characteristics of patients prior to treatment (nodal status, depth of invasion, DOI). A BPI average score that includes responses to questions that measure both pain severity and interference with function performs similarly to the UCSFOCPQ in detection of associations with nodal status, pathologic T stage (pT stage), stage and depth of invasion (DOI).

Conclusion: Pain assessment instruments that measure sensory and interference dimensions of oral cancer pain correlate with biologic features and clinical behavior.

Keywords: Brief Pain Inventory; University of California San Francisco Oral Cancer Pain Questionnaire; pain interference with functioning; pain severity; pretreatment oral cancer pain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest in this work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Responses of patients on the UCSFOCPQ. Shown are individual patients’ responses to each of the eight questions on the UCSFOCPQ in columns and responses to the UCSFOCPQ questions across patients in rows. Both columns and rows were clustered by Euclidean distance and Ward linkage. Patients’ pain scores are distributed among low (mostly blue) and medium or high responses to questions 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 (shades of red), representing the range of responses observed in a larger cohort of patients.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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