Management of cancer pain

Abstract

Enormous advances have occurred in the past two decades in our understanding of cancer pain and in our capacity to relieve it in most cases. Progress has been made in our understanding of the pathogenesis of nociception, the epidemiology of cancer pain, the validation of effective treatment algorithms, and the evaluation of novel pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic approaches to ameliorate pain. Paralleling these developments in research, pain management has emerged as a priority in healthcare policy and medical education. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.