New data on opioid use disorder and risk of overdose in adolescent and young adult disease‐free survivors prescribed opioids after cancer treatment

Abstract The study by Chao et al. examines the prevalence of long‐term and high‐dose opioid therapy, opioid use disorder (OUD), and overdoses among 2‐year adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors. These data provide extremely important insight for clinicians making complex pain management decisions in the treatment of disease‐free young adults with cancer pain. Chao et al. demonstrated that cancer survivors were at a lower OUD risk than age matched controls. Although the data are very reassuring, the authors make an extremely important conclusion that risk‐stratified monitoring of cancer‐free survivors on opioids and better understanding of the risks of OUD in AYA cancer survivors is paramount.