Predictors of persistent post-surgical pain intensity and interference at 1 year after breast cancer surgery: assessing central sensitization, central sensitivity symptoms, and psychological factors

Central Sensitization in Cancer Survivors and Its Clinical Implications: State of the Art

“…It has also been found that breast cancer survivors with medium and high levels of CS severity have more pain intensity and pain location than breast cancer survivors with low levels of CS severity [47]. In a longitudinal study, CS-related symptoms before and after surgery were independent predictors for pain intensity and disability of chronic pain after breast cancer surgery, in addition to treatment-related factors such as axillary lymph node dissection [25,26]. CSrelated symptoms are not only associated with pain intensity and disability but also with anxiety, depression, pain catastrophizing [52,53], and fear of exercise [54].…”

“…There is also an increasing number of reports related to hyperalgesia and CS measured using QST [25,26,[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. Most reports on cancer pain and QST have been mainly evaluated by PPT.…”

“…CS has also received attention as a mechanism for cancer pain because CS could affect pain in about 40% of breast cancer survivors [23,24]. Moreover, CS-related symptoms have the capability to predict the intensity and interference of persistent postsurgical pain 1 year after surgery [25,26]. These findings suggest that the assessment and treatment of CS are important for the appropriate treatment and management of cancer pain.…”