Chronic Widespread Pain Linked to Excess Mortality Risk

Chronic widespread pain (CWP) is associated with earlier mortality, according to the results of a recent study.

The researchers used data from the UK Biobank, a cohort of 500,000 individuals aged 40 to 69 years who were recruited throughout Great Britain from 2006 to 2010, and conducted a meta-analysis in order to calculated a pooled estimate of excess mortality risk among patients reporting widespread pain for 3 or more months.
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Overall, participants who reported CWP (n=7130) experienced excess mortality risk (risk ratio 2.43), with specific causes of death including cancer, cardiovascular-, respiratory-, and other disease-related causes. After adjusting for low levels of physical activity, body mass index, poor quality diet, and smoking. In their meta-analysis, the researchers found that all studies showed significant excess all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality among these patients.

“Evidence is now clear that persons with CWP experience excess mortality. UK Biobank results considerably reduce uncertainty around the magnitude of excess risk and are consistent with the excess being explained by adverse lifestyle factors, which could be targeted in the management of such patients,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Macfarlane GJ, Barnish MS, Jones GT. Persons with chronic widespread pain experience excess mortality: longitudinal results from UK Biobank and meta-analysis [published online July 21, 2017]. BMJ. doi: 10.1136/annrheumdis-2017-211476.