Bulletin
of the Multinational Center
of Quality of Life Research № 7-8

A.A. Novik, T.I. Ionova, S.A. Kalyadina, A.V. Kishtovich , A.S. Barchuk , A.V. Vazhenin, A.B. Yezhov, M.V. Kopp, V.M. Matrosov, F.F. Mufazamov, A.A. Miasnikov, T.V. Chagorova, M.V. Shomova, A.I.Arseniev, M.I. Afanasiev, A.E. Bannikova, E.S. Beklemisheva, N.V. Blomkvist, Y.K. Lebedeva, N.V. Malakhova, A.V.Pankova, I.V. Rykov, V.V. Chernova, E.A. Shipitzin, S. Wang, C. Cleeland

Pain management in patients with advanced solid and hematological malignancies: results of epidemiological symptom study.

Pain and approaches to its management in advanced cancer patients was studied within the National epidemiological symptom study conducted in Russia in 2005-2006.
This article presents preliminary results on cancer pain prevalence and severity in patients with advanced solid tumors and hematological malignancies, adequacy of cancer pain management (Pain Management Index, PMI), comparison of pain assessment by self-report and physician-report. It was shown that 69% of patients with solid tumors and 59% of patients with hematological malignancies experience pain.
Most of them have moderate-to-severe pain. At base-line inadequate pain management (negative PMI) was registered in 61% of patient; the majority of them were with moderate-to-severe pain. In a month changes of analgesics prescription were found in the group of patients with severe pain. It led to significant decrease of pain intensity or complete pain relief in the majority of them.
There were almost no changes in PMI in groups of patients who experienced mild or moderate pain. As a consequence these patients had stable pain severity level or reported pain worsening.
Physicians underestimated patient's pain severity that was more profound for moderate-to-severe pain.