“…The prevalence of pain amongst those with advanced, metastatic cancer reaches 95%, and its intensity ranges between 7-8 in a VRS 1-10 scale, also despite the fact that 92% of these patients receive opioids and 42% adjuvant analgesics. These findings have been attributed to inappropriate doses prescribed, or administration from inappropriate routes, apparently due to insufficient education of physicians and other health care professionals, or even due to fear of undesirable side effects (8,9). Overall, lack or failure of treatment to control cancer pain has been attributed mainly to lack of appropriate knowledge or ineffective individual assessment for pertinent symptoms, resulting in underutilization or improper use of analgesic resources.…”