Multipronged strategy subdues cancer pain

For most patients with advanced cancer, pain can be controlled when it is approached by specialists with different areas of expertise, according to report from Taiwan.

"About 50 percent of all cancer patients and 70 percent of patients with advanced cancer have pain," Dr. Wen Ling Peng, of the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center, Taipei, Taiwan, and colleagues write in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.

The team explains that a multidisciplinary approach to pain has been in place at their center since 1990 and a special guideline for pain therapy was developed in 1999. Treatment plans for each patient are decided by a team, including oncologists, nurses, pharmacists, anesthesiologists, physical therapists and psychiatrists.

The investigators found in a look-back study involving 772 cancer patients that 669 of them (87 percent) suffered from pain at some point. Of the 669 patients with pain, 85 percent had been treated with "strong" opioids.

The number of patients experiencing pain in the last 6 months of life increased as they progressed through the end stage of cancer. However, "Using multidisciplinary pain management, the majority of these patients had their pain become mild to none," Peng and colleagues report. Moreover, only 11 percent experienced more severe pain in the last week of life.

"We conclude that the application of a multidisciplinary approach to pain management offers effective pain control for most patients with advanced cancer," the team writes.

SOURCE: Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, November 2006.