Introduction. Pain is a frequent symptom in oncology, approximately 50% of cancer patients have pain at some moment in their disease, and increase by 75-90% in advanced stages. Pain may be associated with the tumor, with treatment or be related with other causes. Presents an important physical, mental and social impact, so it is important to give an adequate analgesic treatment. Objective. To analyze the pain incidence, intensity and treatment in our Radiotherapy Oncology unit. Materials and methods. An observational study has been realized interviewing 200 patients of our unit. We have made them several questions about pain: presence/absence, cause, location, days with pain, intensity according to VAS and treatment. Results. Of the 200 patients, 120 were men and 80 were women, with a mean age of 64 years (26-87). 147 patients were asymptomatic (73.5%) and 53 had pain (26.5%), pain was related to the disease and/or the treatment to 79.2% of cases and independent to 20.8%. Of the 53 patients with pain, 69.8% were taking medication (first step: 45.9%, second step: 10.9% and third step: 43.2%). We analyzed VAS maximum, middle and minimum by steps of analgesic: first step (6.4/4/1.6), second step (6/4.2/2.2), and third step (6.6/2.3/2.3). Conclusion. Most of our patients have no pain. Those who are symptomatic are mainly palliative or head and neck tumours. They have an average of days a week with pain of 6 (1-7) and a mode of 7. Analyzing the patients by steps, we observe that in the first and second, only one patient in each group is well treated, others have a maximum VAS above 4; would be necessary to step up. Third step patients also show a high maximum average VAS, could be to have low doses, absence of rescue analgesia or adjuvant, or they need a fourth step using invasive techniques.http://dx.
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