Biomaterial Database

Cancer Pain Management in Patients Receiving Inpatient Specialized Palliative Care Services. 2024

Keita Tagami, and Shih-Wei Chiu, and Kazuhiro Kosugi, and Hiroto Ishiki, and Yusuke Hiratsuka, and Masaki Shimizu, and Masanori Mori, and Emi Kubo, and Tomoo Ikari, and Sayaka Arakawa, and Tetsuya Eto, and Mayu Shimoda, and Hideyuki Hirayama, and Kaoru Nishijima, and Kota Ouchi, and Tatsunori Shimoi, and Tomoko Shigeno, and Takuhiro Yamaguchi, and Mitsunori Miyashita, and Tatsuya Morita, and Akira Inoue, and Eriko Satomi

Department of Palliative Medicine (K.T., Y.H., T.I., A.I.), Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. Electronic address: keita.tagami.d7@tohoku.ac.jp.

BACKGROUND Cancer pain is a common complication that is frequently undertreated in patients with cancer. OBJECTIVE This study is aimed at assessing the time needed to achieve cancer pain management goals through specialized palliative care (SPC). METHODS This was a multicenter, prospective, longitudinal study of inpatients with cancer pain who received SPC. Patients were continuously followed up until they considered cancer pain management successful, and we estimated this duration using the Kaplan-Meier method. We investigated the effectiveness of pain management using multiple patient-reported outcomes (PROs) and quantitative measures, including pain intensity change in the Brief Pain Inventory. A paired-sample t-test was used to compare the pain intensity at the beginning and end of the observation period. RESULTS Cancer pain management based on the PROs was achieved in 87.9% (385/438) of all cases. In 94.5% (364/385) of these cases, cancer pain management was achieved within 1 week, and the median time to pain management was 3 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 2-3). The mean worst pain intensity in the last 24 h at the start and end of observation were 6.9 ± 2.2 and 4.0 ± 2.3, respectively, with a difference of -2.9 (95% CI, -3.2 to -2.6; p < 0.01). Overall, 81.6% of the patients reported satisfaction with cancer pain management, and 62 adverse events occurred. CONCLUSIONS SPC achieved cancer pain management over a short period with a high level of patient satisfaction resulting in significant pain reduction and few documented adverse events.