BACKGROUND: Pain is a prevalent symptom in cancer patients, affecting up to 50% of patients undergoing active cancer treatment and up to 90% of those with advanced disease. Although adequate relief can be achieved in the majority of cancer patients, pain is often treated inadequately in traditional settings. METHODS: The authors use their experience and that of others to review the evaluation a...

Cancer pain is highly prevalent and often severe. Fortunately, most cancer pain can be readily managed, with up to 90% of patients responding well to standard interventions. However, breakthrough cancer pain-brief flares of severe pain superimposed on baseline pain-is common, difficult to manage, and often negatively impacts patients' quality of life. Breakthrough cancer pain is traditionally m...

RATIONALE Pain is one of the most common and distressing symptoms experienced by cancer patients. Cancer pain is a complex phenomenon with physical, psychological, social, and cognitive domains. Although opioids remain a cornerstone of cancer pain management, they are not effective in all patients. This case highlights the successful treatment of an opioid-refractory severe cancer pain crisis w...

Chronic pain is experienced by as many as 90% of cancer patients at some point during the disease. This pain can be directly cancer related or arise from a sensory neuropathy related to chemotherapy. Major pharmacological agents used to treat cancer pain often lack anatomical specificity and can have off-target effects that create new sources of suffering. These concerns establish a need for im...

BACKGROUND Pain occurs in 50% of patients with cancer at the time of diagnosis, and nearly 80% of patients with advanced stage cancer have moderate to severe pain. Assessment of pain requires the health care professional to measure pain intensity, delineate opioid responsiveness, and clarify the impact of pain on a patient's psychological, social, spiritual, and existential domains. To this end...

The incidence of pain among 5,410 patients at various stages of the disease was 51%, whereas among 9,007 patients with advanced metastatic or at terminal phase of cancer was 74% [1]. Furthermore, published data show that among advanced cancer patients with pain, the symptom is moderate to severe in about 40%-50% and very severe or excruciating in 25%30% [2-4] and that most advanced-cancer patie...

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION To evaluate the literature for music's effect on adult cancer pain.
. LITERATURE SEARCH An electronic literature search from 1986-2014 was conducted to evaluate the effects of quantitative music among adults with cancer pain in settings including homes, hospitals, and palliative care units. Databases used were PubMed (MEDLINE) and Scopus.
 DATA EVALUATION The study de...

BACKGROUND Controlling pain in cancer patients is often inadequate. A recent multicenter study of patients with metastatic disease who were experiencing pain reported that 36% still had pain severe enough to compromise their daily function. METHODS The author draws on his experiences as well as those of others to review general guidelines and provide specific recommendations for cancer pain m...

Cancer-induced bone diseases are common and can have a devastating impact at the end of life. One of the most difficult sequelae of cancer is metastases to the skeleton, an event that results in bone destruction and bone cancer pain. Bone cancer pain is usually progressive as the disease advances, and is particularly difficult to treat. Recently, experimental models of bone cancer pain have bee...