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PRF Seminar – Pain in Survivors of Childhood Cancer: A Theory-Driven Approach to an Understudied Problem


27 May 2020


PRF Webinars

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Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of weekly PRF seminars to help keep the pain research community connected during the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide all members of the community with virtual educational opportunities. These seminars are funded by the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US, which we thank for its generous support.

 

The IASP Pain Research Forum hosted a seminar with Lauren Heathcote, PhD, Stanford University Medical School, US, and Perri Tutelman, PhD student, Dalhousie University, Canada, on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, noon–1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (US)/5-6 p.m. BST/6-7 p.m. CEST. The seminar was moderated by Allen Finley, MD, Dalhousie University, Canada.

  • Lauren Heathcote, PhD, Stanford University Medical School, US
  • Perri Tutelman, Dalhousie University, Canada
  • Allen Finley, MD, Dalhousie University, Canada

A recording of this seminar will soon be freely available to IASP members at the IASP Pain Education Resource Center (PERC).

 

Here is an abstract from the presenters:

Pain is a common but vastly understudied problem in cancer survivors. Current approaches to managing pain after cancer are similar to those for chronic non-cancer pain, yet pain after cancer affords unique biopsychosocial challenges. Pain could indicate a normal health event (e.g., muscle aches), a consequence of toxic treatment, or a recurrence of cancer. The challenge for every survivor is knowing how to monitor, attend to, and interpret everyday experiences of pain. Thus, managing pain after cancer warrants a disease- and person-specific research and treatment approach. In this seminar, we will jointly outline the current evidence for pain problems in cancer survivors from childhood to young adulthood and present cutting-edge research that combines theory-driven questions with patient-centered evidence. We will present novel data on pain experiences across international cohorts of cancer survivors spanning childhood to young adulthood. These data have resulted from diverse methodologies including qualitative interviews, quantitative measure development, and experimental pain paradigms that capture unique aspects of patient pain experiences. We will discuss how these data are situated in recent theoretical advances that also point to areas for future research.

 

About the presenters

Lauren Heathcote, PhD, is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. She previously received her PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Oxford in the UK. Her research bridges experimental psychology and medical science, defining biopsychosocial mechanisms of pain and symptom perception and how these drive health outcomes in young people. In particular, her work focuses on the perception of pain and somatic symptoms as signals of bodily threat. Her research is supported by a Stanford Maternal and Child Health Research Institute postdoctoral award and by several project grants including from the American Psychological Association and the Lucile Packard Auxiliaries Endowment Fund.

 

Perri Tutelman is a senior PhD student in clinical psychology at Dalhousie University. Her research is based at the Centre for Pediatric Pain Research at the IWK Health Centre, working with her supervisor Dr. Christine Chambers. Tutelman’s clinical and research interests include pain in pediatric oncology, the role of families in pediatric pain, and patient engagement in research. Her doctoral work is focused on examining the pain experience in childhood cancer survivors using experimental pain and qualitative methods. She is the past trainee representative for the Canadian Pain Society and was a member of the North American Pain School Class of 2019. She is currently serving as a co-guest editor for the forthcoming Canadian Journal of Pain Special Issue on Qualitative Research and Pain. Her research has been supported by several provincial and national organizations including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship program, Research Nova Scotia, and the Beatrice Hunter Cancer Research Institute.

 

About the moderator

Allen Finley, MD, is a pediatric anesthesiologist who has worked for 30 years in pain research and management. He is professor of Anesthesia and Psychology at Dalhousie University. At the IWK Health Centre in Halifax, Canada, he holds the inaugural Dr. Stewart Wenning Chair in Pediatric Pain Management and is the director of the Centre for Pediatric Pain Research. He has published and lectured widely. He started the PEDIATRIC-PAIN email discussion list in 1993, bringing together pain researchers and clinicians from more than 40 countries. His main interest is pain service development and advocacy for improved pain care for children around the world, and he is board chair of the ChildKind International Initiative. He is a member of the IASP Executive Committee. His current research work includes broad collaborations with colleagues at Dalhousie University, the University of Ottawa, and elsewhere, including as co-PI of the CIHR SPOR Chronic Pain Network and a Hub Lead for SKIP – Solutions for Kids in Pain.

 

Join the conversation about the seminar on Twitter @PainResForum #PRFSeminar

 

We thank the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US, for its support of PRF’s new seminar series.

 

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