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Cancer Pain Management: What’s New?

  • Cancer Pain (DA Marcus, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Decades after the publication of the World Health Organization’s analgesic ladder, cancer pain is still a major cause of suffering for patients with cancer and affects millions of people worldwide. Owing to the increasing incidence of cancer, cancer-related pain is a major public health problem worldwide. Unfortunately, current research revealed that available options for the successful treatment of cancer pain is still massively underutilized by physicians, and many patients suffer from insufficiently controlled pain despite available treatment options. This review aims to present a concise update about new data or treatment recommendations from the field of cancer pain management. Therefore, information from guidelines, systematic reviews, and original articles that were published in the year 2012 are presented. Specifically, the publication covers information on tapentadol, fixed oxycodone/naloxone combinations, rapid onset fentanyl, nabiximols, ketamine, denusomab, and specialized psychosocial interventions including early palliative care.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Acknowledgements

Our department is supported for clinical studies by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF01KN0706). The authors would like to thank Andrea Knies for systematic literature search, preparation, and translation of the manuscript and Svenja Wildfeuer for her help with literature formatting.

Conflict of Interest

Dr. J. Gaertner has received honoraria for lectures, advisory boards, and reports from Mundipharma, Archimedes, Teva (Cephalon), and Pfizer.

Dr. C. Schiessl has received honoraria for lectures and advisory boards from Grünenthal, Lilly, TEVA (Cephalon) and Roche.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Palliative Care, University Hospital Cologne, 50924, Cologne, Germany

    Jan Gaertner & Christine Schiessl

  2. Center for Integrated Oncology, University Hospital, Cologne/Bonn, Germany

    Jan Gaertner & Christine Schiessl

  3. Clinical Trials Center Cologne BMBF 01KN0706, Cologne, Germany

    Jan Gaertner

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  1. Jan Gaertner
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Correspondence to Jan Gaertner.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Cancer Pain

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Gaertner, J., Schiessl, C. Cancer Pain Management: What’s New?. Curr Pain Headache Rep 17, 328 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-013-0328-9

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