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Palliative cancer care - pain - Management
Overview of management
- Relieve acute, severe pain promptly before fuller assessment and management.
- Diagnose the cause and type of pain as accurately as possible. This is required to plan the most effective treatment.
- Always consider treating the underlying cause of pain. This may involve a greater burden for the person but has a greater potential benefit. Drugs or treatments that are not directly analgesic may be used (such as radiotherapy for bone pain) and can help to reduce the amount of standard analgesics needed.
- Treat pain symptomatically. A stepwise approach using the World Health Organization's analgesic ladder can be used as a framework. Pain should always be relieved promptly and effectively with standard analgesic drugs, even when other treatments are given for pain.
- Some types of pain require a specific symptomatic approach (for example, neuropathic pain, bone pain, myofascial pain).
- Seek specialist help promptly if pain proves difficult to manage.
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