Cancer pain management

Pain occurs in more than 80% of cancer patients before death. Because of the increase in the frequency of cancer deaths worldwide, it is imperative to address cancer pain as a public health problem. Until recently, educational efforts were focused on treatment issues rather than adequate assessment. The approach to pain intensity as a multidimensional construct has helped in focusing treatments and identifying prognostic factors. Valid tools have been developed that allow multidisciplinary assessment of these prognostic factors and their complex interrelationship with the analgesic response. As a result of increased opioid exposure, patients are currently developing newer toxicities, mostly central excitability including delirium, myoclonus, grand mal seizures, and hyperalgesia. The observation that more than 80% of patients will require alternate routes for opioid delivery before death led to the development of a number of novel and effective alternate routes for delivery. Finally, in recent years it has become evident that some specific pain syndromes need to be addressed using specific assessment and management techniques. Incidental pain, somatization, neuropathic pain, and cancer pain in patients with alcoholism and drug addiction are some of these syndromes. (C) Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica 41 (1997).