Cancer Pain: Where are we Now?

Abstract

Increasing numbers of those living with and beyond cancer presents a clinical challenge for pain specialists. A large proportion of these patients experience pain secondary to their disease or its treatment, impeding rehabilitation and significantly impacting upon their quality of life. The successful management of this pain presents a considerable challenge. This review aims to outline current concepts and treatment options, while considering nuances within pain assessment and the use of large-scale data to help guide further advances.

Keywords::

• cancer pain
• large-scale data
• pain assessment
• pain management
• recent advances

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the NHS funding to the Royal Marsden/Institute of Cancer Research NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.

Financial & competing interests disclosure

P Farquhar-Smith has previously undertaken paid consultancy work for Astellas, Pfizer, Grunenthal and Kyowa Kirin. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.