Changes to This Summary (05/03/2013)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

Overview

Added text about pain in cancer survivors (cited Pachman et al. as reference 2).

Added lack of knowledge about principles of basic pain management as a patient-related barrier to effective pain management (cited Rustøen et al. as reference 8).

Pain Assessment

Added text about clinical response to an outpatient palliative care consultation in patients with advanced cancer and cancer pain (cited Yennurajalingam et al. as reference 1).

Pharmacologic Management

Revised text to state that a 130-patient, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial using fentanyl sublingual spray was performed in opioid-tolerant patients and that these studies demonstrated that both fentanyl buccal tablets and fentanyl sublingual spray were efficacious and safe in treating cancer-related breakthrough pain (cited Rauck et al. as reference 112).

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Supportive and Palliative Care Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.