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CANCER AND PAIN

Not poppy nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep,

Which thou owedst yesterday.

Shakespeare (Othello)

Much of what has been said earlier in this book relates just as well to the pain associated with cancer. But there are major differences in emphasis in the treatment of cancer pain and the pain associated with non-malignant conditions.

The provision of pain relief for those with terminal disease, and cancer in particular, remains one of the great challenges in medicine today. To be dying from a terminal disease presents great psychosocial difficulties, but, to be in pain as well is often an intolerable burden.

Despite great advances in the understanding of the ways in which opiate or narcotic medication works in the body and the introduction of newer types of powerful pain-killers there are still many who suffer intolerably and perhaps unnecessarily towards the end of their lives.

The 1988 Australian National Health and Medical Research Council devoted much of its report on Management of Severe Pain to the problem of cancer pain. It makes the point that cancer pain is poorly controlled in many cases.

The report states that 40 to 80 per cent of severe cancer pain is unrelieved, when a level of five percent or less of unrelieved pain is attainable. -

It goes on to assert that poor management of cancer pain is often the result of failure to appreciate the degree of suffering which is present, failure to diagnose the cause of the pain, use of weak or inappropriate pain-killers, fear of narcotic addiction both by doctors and patients; and the largely incorrect conviction or belief shared by doctor and patient alike that cancer pain is inevitable and untreatable.

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Related Posts:

• AUSTRALIAN CLINICS SURVEYED: CONDITIONS TREATED
• PAIN TREATMENT/CREATIVE IMAGINATION SCALE (CIS): FINGER ANAESTHESIA
• OTHER PAIN TREATMENTS: COST OF TYPICAL TENS UNITS