REVISTA DE LA SOCIEDAD ESPAÑOLA DEL DOLOR

Acute and chronic pain is highly prevalent in cancer patients. Inadequate assessment and treatment of pain and other distressing symptoms may interfere with antitumor therapy and markedly affect the quality of life. While a strong focus on pain control is important regardless of disease stage, it is a special priority in patients with advanced disease who are no longer candidates for potentially curative therapy. Although rarely eliminated, pain can be controlled in the vast majority of patients, with the implementation of aggressive comprehensive medical management. In the small but significant proportion of patients whose pain is not readily controlled with non-invasive analgesics, a variety of alternative invasive and non-invasive measures, when selected carefully, are also associated with a high degree of success. To this end, it is very reassuring to conclude that at this point, we have the appropriate tools to adequately treat cancer related pain in close to 100% of the patients.