23. Pain in Patients with Cancer (original) (raw)
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Interventional Techniques for the Management of Cancer-Related Pain: Clinical and Critical Aspects
Cancers, 2019
Interventional techniques to manage cancer-related pain may be efficient treatment modalities in patients unresponsive or unable to tolerate systemic opioids. However, indication and selection of the right technique demand knowledge, which is still incipient among clinicians. The present article summarizes the current evidence regarding the five most essential groups of interventional techniques to treat cancer-related pain: Neuraxial analgesia, minimally invasive procedures for vertebral pain, sympathetic blocks for abdominal cancer pain, peripheral nerve blocks, and percutaneous cordotomy. Furthermore, indication, mechanism, drug agents, contraindications, and complications of the main techniques of each group are discussed.
Pain Practice
Pain in patients with cancer can be refractory to pharmacological treatment or intolerable side effects of pharmacological treatment may seriously disturb patients' quality of life. Specific interventional pain management techniques can be an effective alternative for those patients. The appropriate application of these interventional techniques provides better pain control, allows the reduction of analgesics and hence improves quality of life. Until recently, the majority of these techniques are considered to be a fourth consecutive step following the World Health Organization's pain treatment ladder. However, in cancer patients, earlier application of interventional pain management techniques can be recommended even before considering the use of strong opioids. Epidural and intrathecal medication administration allow the reduction of the daily oral or transdermal opioid dose, while maintaining or even improving the pain relief and reducing the side effects. Cervical cordot...
Pain management: The rising role of interventional oncology
Diagnostic and interventional imaging, 2017
Patients with early or metastatic cancer may suffer from pain of different origins. The vast majority of these patients are not adequately treated by means of systemic analgesia and radiotherapy. Percutaneous neurolysis is performed using chemical agents or thermal energy upon sympathetic nervous system plexus for pain reduction and life quality improvement. Ablation and vertebral augmentation are included in clinical guidelines for metastatic disease. As far as the peripheral skeleton is concerned bone augmentation and stabilization can be performed by means of cement injection either solely performed or in combination to cannulated screws or other metallic or peek implants. This review describes the basic concepts of interventional oncology techniques as therapies for cancer pain management. The necessity for a tailored-based approach applying different techniques for different cases and locations will be addressed.
Early Interventional Treatments for Patients with Cancer Pain: A Narrative Review
Journal of Pain Research, 2023
Between 10% and 20% of patients with cancer-related pain cannot achieve adequate control following the three-step ladder guidelines by the World Health Organization. Therefore, a "fourth step", including interventional approaches, has been suggested for those cases. Systematic reviews support the early use of interventional procedures to treat refractory cancer pain, control symptoms and prevent opioid dose escalation. There is strong evidence of the efficacy of celiac plexus or splanchnic neurolysis, vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty and intrathecal drug delivery. Those procedures have been found to be associated with a decrease in the symptom burden and opioid consumption, improved quality of life, and suggested as having a potentially positive impact on survival. Several studies have recommended using specific interventional techniques at earlier stages, possibly even when opioid treatment is first being considered. Conversely, leaving these options as a last analgesic resource might not be advisable since the burden these procedures might impose on too ill patients is significant. The objective of this review was to collect the available evidence published on the use of interventional treatments for refractory cancer pain with a particular interest in comparing early versus late indications. The results of the search demonstrated a very low number and quality of articles particularly addressing this question. This scarce number of evidence precluded performing a systematic analysis. A detailed and narrative description of the potential benefits of integrating interventional techniques into clinical guidelines at the early stages of the disease is provided.
2012
Objective: To describe types of interventional medical procedures, its rationale use and benefits for a population with cancer assisted at a private hospital in Sao Paulo. Methods: Quantitative and descriptive cross-sectional study using data from patients submitted to interventional procedures between 2007 and 2008. We used descriptive and inferential statistics (frequency, mean, and t -test) to analyze data. Results: A total of 137 patients were submitted to interventional procedures for pain and, out of this total, 14 mentioned cancer-related pain.The mean pain intensity was 7.1 before the procedure and 1.3 after it. Reduction in pain intensity was statistically significant in this population ( t =9.09; p=0.001). In almost 70% of patients (n=10) a reduction of 50% of the consumption of opioid a month after the procedure was realized. Conclusion: These results are in accordance with the literature and support the efficacy of interventional procedures for several types of cancer pain.
Agonizing Cancer Pain: Effective Interventional Pain Management
Pain is one of the most common symptoms associated with cancer. Pain is defined as "an independent and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage." Cancer pain or cancer-related pain distinguishes pain experienced by cancer patients from that experienced by patients without malignancies. Pain occurs in approximately one quarter of patients with newly diagnosed malignancies, one third of patients undergoing treatment, and three quarters of patients with advanced disease. In addition, this is one of the symptoms patients fear most. Unrelieved pain denies them comfort and greatly affects their activities, motivation, interactions with family and friends, and overall quality of life. The importance of relieving pain and the availability of excellent therapies make it imperative that physicians and nurses caring for these patients be adept at the assessment and treatment of cancer pain. This requires familiarity with the pathogenesis of cancer pain; pain assessment techniques; common barriers to the delivery of appropriate analgesia; and pertinent pharmacologic, anesthetic, neurosurgical, and behavioral approaches to the treatment of cancer pain.
Acta Oncologica, 2015
Background: Image-guided percutaneous ablation methods have proved effective for treatment of benign bone tumors and for palliation of metastases involving the bone. However, the role of these techniques is controversial and has to be better defined in the setting of palliative care. Methods: A systematic review of the existing data regarding minimally invasive techniques for the pain management of vertebral bone metastases was performed by experts of the European Palliative Care Research Network. Results: Only five papers were taken into consideration after performing rigorous screening according to inclusion and exclusion criteria (low number of patients, retrospective series, proceedings). Discussion: According to the present data a recommendation should be made to perform kiphoplasty in patients with vertebral tumors or metastases. However, the strength of this recommendation was based on one randomized controlled study. Several weaknesses and low quality of study design were observed with other techniques. Conclusion: Further randomized controlled trials are required to improve the strength of evidence available to suggest these procedures on large scale. Until then, the balance of evidence favors the use of these procedures in a small select cohort of patients with severe and disabling back pain refractory to medical therapy. HISTORY