Cancer Pain and Pain Medicine: Caracteristics, Management and Impact on Patients

Dear Colleagues,

The management of any kind of pain, especially neuropathic pain, is a challenge. One of the most common symptoms in cancer patients is pain. Pain can develop from cancer, cancer treatment, or the combination of both factors. Common reasons for pain include tumors, surgery, intravenous chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, supportive care therapies such as bisphosphonates, and diagnostic procedures. Younger patients are more likely to have cancer pain and pain flares than older patients. Patients with advanced cancer have more severe pain, and many cancer survivors have pain that continues after cancer treatment ends.

The currently available drugs usually do not target the multiple underlying mechanisms. Cancer pain creates significant difficulties for many patients, and can reduce quality of life.

Cancer pain typically persists past normal healing times and can have many sources, typically within the musculoskeletal system, nerve tissues, or viscera. In these situations, the pain patient is often not merely a passive victim but an active participant. They play their part by looking for solutions, through attempts to suppress or ease the experience, and sometimes literally and figuratively fighting for control. They may look for information from physicians or the Internet, trying to understand why they have pain. They may see many professionals and try many different medical treatments. They may adopt patterns of checking their body for signs of a change, or of worsening pain, and ruminate about their health problems. They may dwell on the past and imagine possible consequences of pain in the future. Today, multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary treatments are the best approaches for chronic and cancer pain. These treatments can include medications, interventional procedures, and physiotherapy paired with a psychological coping treatment.

Particularly when these treatments are unified by a model that focuses on improving functioning, they are known to be both clinically effective and cost effective. In this context, psychological research and treatment developments have contributed significantly to addressing the problems of chronic pain, and appear likely to continue to do so.

Future prospects of finding suitable drugs for pain depend on an improved understanding of pain mechanisms.  

Prof. Dr. Sabine Sator
Guest Editor

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• pain
• cancer pain
• nociceptive pain
• visceral pain
• neuropathic pain
• acute pain
• chronic pain
• diabetic neuropathy
• postherpetic neuralgia
• failed back surgery syndrome
• chronic pelvic pain
• drug therapy
• patch therapy—capsaicin
• invasive pain therapy
• spinal cord stimulation
• ultrasound guided nerve blocks
• psychological treatments
• pain coping groups