KU research award will help develop pain and nicotine intervention for cancer survivors
About 1.8 million cancer survivors who have chronic pain smoke cigarettes, which is up to four times higher than the general population. Nicotine can reduce pain in the short term, but smoking increases pain severity over time. This creates a feedback loop, where increasing pain drives continued smoking, making it harder to quit.
Jessica Powers, Ph.D., Judy Janes Professor of Addiction at KU and a researcher at the Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Treatment and Research, has been granted a K12 Paul Calabresi Career Development award from the KU Cancer Center to develop a pain management and smoking cessation program for cancer survivors.
“My research has shown that cancer survivors with chronic pain are far more likely to smoke cigarettes,” Powers said. “It's a really vicious cycle, where pain drives smoking and smoking makes the pain worse. This grant lets me build an intervention that finally addresses both sides of that cycle, so survivors have a real chance to quit smoking for good.”
Powers’ goal is to develop and refine the intervention, titled Improving Management of Pain and Achieving Cessation from Tobacco (IMPACT). IMPACT will integrate smoking cessation treatment with cognitive behavioral and mindfulness-based pain-management strategies to help cancer survivors better manage pain without relying on cigarettes. The research team also includes KU Medical Center colleagues Lisa Sanderson Cox, Ph.D., professor of population health, and Andrea L. Chadwick, M.D., professor of anesthesiology, pain and perioperative medicine.
Smoking cessation is one of the most effective lifestyle changes cancer survivors can make to reduce negative health impacts and increase life expectancy, noted Powers. Quitting also improves how well the body responds to cancer treatment and lowers the risk of developing a second primary cancer. It can also improve pain, functioning, and quality of life for survivors.
While initial pain and smoking cessation interventions have shown promising results in increasing motivation to quit, cancer survivors tend to be excluded from these studies. To address this gap in care, Powers said IMPACT will be a telehealth intervention that combines evidence-based smoking cessation treatment with pain-management skills for cancer survivors with chronic pain.
As part of the treatment-development process, Powers will establish a community advisory board of cancer survivors, conduct focus groups with survivors who smoke and experience chronic pain, and use participant feedback to refine the intervention's content and delivery. She said the project addresses a major gap in cancer survivorship care and could inform future interventions for people living with chronic pain and other substance-use challenges.
The Cofrin Logan Center for Addiction Research and Treatment, part of the KU Life Span Institute, seeks to understand, prevent, and treat addiction and related disorders. Read about Powers's earlier research on the connection between chronic pain and nicotine use.