Pain Management

The pains cancer patients experience Treating pains that cancer patients suffer from requires a basic set of knowledge, including the general idea about pain, their evaluation methods, classification, mechanisms, treating strategies, and coping techniques. In recent years, people “who have been diagnosed as having cancer but survived it,” including those who have had cancer before, are being treated for cancers, are under observation for the progress of cancers, and are in the terminal stages of cancer, are called “cancer survivors” in the broad sense of the term (National Cancer Institute. Facing Forward: Life after cancer treatmen. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/facing-forward ). While approximately 30–40% of the cancer survivors are said to suffer from certain types of physical pains, treatments that are appropriate for those pains vary depending on the direct cause of the pain and in which stage of the cancer the patient is suffering (Paice et al., J Clin Oncol 34: 3325–45, 2016). This article is an overview of the pains that cancer patients suffer while providing an opportunity to gain a deeper understanding about pain in general.