Pain assessment, recognising clinical patterns, and cancer pain syndromes

Abstract

Pain in cancer is not a single diagnosis or entity. In fact, it is a constellation of many types of pain from which each type needs to be assessed separately in order to choose specific treatment. The pain in cancer can be related to the disease itself, its treatment but also to other, non-cancer-related issues like immobility, atrophy, and degeneration. Here, we present a way to seperate these three large groups from each other and to recognise specific ­cancer-related pain syndromes. The non-cancer-related syndromes will be discussed in a separate chapter.