Regional pain syndromes in cancer patients

Abstract

Pain is one of the cardinal presenting symptoms in cancer patients and often seems to progress in the natural history of the disease. In light of the past neglect of this problem, it is becoming crucial for clinicians and researchers in the fields of oncology, pain management, and others dealing with this patient population to have a thorough understanding of the often complex pain syndromes that are relevant to managing cancer. In this article we briefly review the important topics related to cancer pain syndromes with some emphasis on those that typically generate localized pain.

The impact of demographic and disease-specific variables on pain in cancer patients

“…6 Different levels of pain were described for patients with different cancer diagnoses. [7][8][9] The highest levels of pain are reported by terminally ill patients. 10 Thus, the prevalence of pain in different cancer groups varies, but the results in each group also vary.…”

“…Thus, factors other than disease-specific ones may determine the level of pain experienced, and there is a need to explore the impact of various factors on reported pain in cancer patients. On the basis of previous research, [1][2][3][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] we developed a model (Fig. 1) that selected demographic variables, disease-specific variables, and level of pain for oncology patients.…”