# Transition from Acute to Chronic Pain After Thoracic Surgery

> **NIH NIH UM1** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2021 · $249,999

## Abstract

Project Summary / Abstract
Chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) is a major cause of new chronic pain, occurring between 10 - 40% after
common surgical procedures. Thoracic surgery procedures have among the highest rates of chronic post-
surgical pain (CPSP), with roughly 30 - 47% of patients developing new chronic pain within 6 months of
surgery. While the high incidence of CPSP following thoracic surgery is well-described, the patient- and care-
factors associated with the development of CPSP are still not clear. Some factors such as anxiety have been
described; however, most cohorts lack the sample size to assess potentially important factors, including
neuroimaging, quantitative sensory testing, and blood samples for genomics, metabolomics and proteomics.
We believe that thoracic surgery is an ideal second surgical population to add to the Acute to Chronic Pain
Signatures (A2CPS) program, complementing the first MCC population of knee arthroplasty, which has much
lower rates of new CPSP but is a better cohort to identify risk factors for failure to resolve chronic pain. Our
inter-disciplinary team from the proposed University of Michigan A2CPS Multisite Clinical Center (MCC) has
unparalleled expertise to examine the phenotypic and genotypic risk factors for the development of CPSP
among patients undergoing thoracic surgery. Our PIs include an anesthesiologist, two surgeons, and a
rheumatologist that have successfully collaborated in ongoing work, and partner within a statewide network of
hospitals performing thoracotomy procedures, the Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons
(MSTCVS) Quality Collaborative. Collaborative quality improvement programs including MSTCVS are funded
by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to conduct participatory, provider-driven quality improvement initiatives,
and our team has heavily leveraged these to study postoperative pain- and opioid-related outcomes and
generate best practices. The implementation and dissemination of these best practices has dramatically
reduced perioperative prescribing of opioids in the state of Michigan, and this strong partnership will enable us
to recruit thoracotomy patients from a population-based sample across diverse healthcare systems. We will
recruit 1800 patients from seven hospitals in Michigan undergoing surgery via a thoracic approach (lung
resection, esophageal resection/reconstruction, and other general thoracic surgery). We have worked with the
A2CPS consortium to harmonize our protocols and prepare for our study launch. Through the multiple
workgroups, we have determined that amendments to our protocols and procedures will be needed to
harmonize with the MCC1 given the progress made by the consortium in the more than year of work before we
joined.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10444038
- **Project number:** 3UM1NS118922-02S1
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Chad M Brummett
- **Activity code:** UM1 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $249,999
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10444038

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10444038, Transition from Acute to Chronic Pain After Thoracic Surgery (3UM1NS118922-02S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-01 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10444038. Licensed CC0.

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