UICC World Cancer Congress 2006

Methods: A multidisciplinary team of physicians and nurses directly responsible for the patients provided prospective data by reporting both the diagnostic and therapeutic interventions performed and the degree of pain control achieved. Two daily pain assessment, which was based on patients report by a numeric rating scale (NRS), was performed during hospitalisation.

Results:Eight hundred and thirty-four admissions (537 patients) were recorded. Pain was registered in 319 of these (38%) corresponding to 220 patients (106 men and 114 women; median age 66 years, range 21-90 years). The median NRS score (10 = greatest pain severity) was 4 (range 1-10) and a NRS score > 5 was observed in 137 out of 319 cases (43%). A total of 460 therapeutic interventions were undertaken, including chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, and analgesic medication was changed in 264 admissions (82%). For admissions with pain level score > 5, the quantitative evaluation showed a significant pain reduction between admission and discharge pain levels—mean pain reduction: 4.15 (p<0.0001). Seventy-seven percent of patients with pain level score > 5 at admission reverted to a pain level < 5 after the hospitalisation.