Patients experiencing lower body pain resulting from bone metastases have greater levels of functional interference than those with upper body pain. The purpose of this study was to assess the levels of interference caused by pain after treatment with conventional radiotherapy using the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and to validate this tool for telephone use. After radiotherapy, a total of 159, 1...

BACKGROUND Long-acting opioid formulations are advocated for maintaining pain control in chronic cancer pain. OROS(R) hydromorphone is a sustained-release formulation of hydromorphone that requires dosing once daily to maintain therapeutic concentrations. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the clinical equivalence of immediate-release and sustained-release formulations of hydromorph...

BACKGROUND Small studies of variable quality suggest that massage therapy may relieve pain and other symptoms. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of massage for decreasing pain and symptom distress and improving quality of life among persons with advanced cancer. DESIGN Multisite, randomized clinical trial. SETTING Population-based Palliative Care Research Network. PATIENTS 380 adults w...

BACKGROUND While opioids provide effective analgesia, opioid-induced constipation (OIC) can severely impact quality of life and treatment compliance. This pooled analysis evaluated the maintenance of efficacy and safety during long-term treatment with combined oxycodone/naloxone prolonged-release tablets (OXN PR) in adults with moderate-to-severe chronic pain. METHODS Patients (N = 474) recei...

STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional psychometric testing in a sample of patients with low back pain (LBP). OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to examine the construct, convergent, and discriminative validity of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) in patients with LBP. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The BPI was originally developed to assess cancer pain. Currently, it is commonly used to measure pain inten...