Active treatment of cancer pain to improve the quality of life of cancer pain patients

  The World Health Organization defines quality of life as the experience of individuals of different cultures and value systems regarding their life goals, expectations, standards, and states of life related to the things they care about, including the four aspects of the individual’s physical, psychological, social functioning, and material state. The concept of quality of life is abstract, complex, and encompasses a variety of domains, but ultimately points to individual satisfaction and dignity.  Mother Teresa, who is known as the “Mother of the World’s Poor” and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, saw one day an old woman struggling and moaning in pain in a garbage can. She rushed closer and found the woman crawling with ants and rats, a hole in her head from a rat bite, and a wound covered with flies and maggots. Later, after several efforts, she set up a “hospice” to help the most suffering dying patients. One of them, on her deathbed, took Teresa’s hand and whispered in Bengali, “I lived like a dog, and now I’m dying like a human being, thank you, Sister.”  Human life is sacred and precious. When life comes to an end and death is inevitable, human beings are often faced with great pain, fear and sorrow. And it becomes the last wish of the dying person to alleviate the pain caused by the disease and still maintain human dignity and calmness in the last stage of life.  The factors that affect the quality of life of cancer patients, besides the effect of cancer treatment and so on, cancer-induced pain is a major factor. In a survey on cancer pain patients, 80% of them are most afraid of pain rather than death. Therefore, if pain is not effectively addressed, not only is the patient’s self-esteem deprived, but the continuous pain often causes a series of psychological changes such as despair, restlessness and irritability, leading to increased sensitivity to pain and deterioration of the patient’s condition. This is an extremely serious and easily neglected global public health problem. About 1/3 of cancer patients worldwide face inadequate or no treatment for cancer pain, and about 25% of patients die without relief from severe cancer pain.  The current goals of cancer pain treatment are: to relieve pain and improve the quality of life of patients with cancer pain, including controlling pain to a level acceptable to the patient; to assess pain and evaluate the effectiveness of treatment in a timely manner; to pay attention to the consideration of all factors affecting pain; to relieve patients’ pain at night, at rest and during activity; and to provide patients and their health care providers with the latest information on analgesic drugs. For bone metastatic cancer pain, pain relief remains the primary treatment goal through multidisciplinary efforts. There are various clinical treatments for cancer pain, which are applied individually or in combination according to the patient’s specific situation, in order to increase the chance of cure, obtain satisfactory analgesic effects with minimizing adverse effects, while eliminating symptoms related to cancer pain (such as anxiety and depression) and maintaining the patient in a certain state of health.  The treatment of cancer pain, with the development of sociology and medicine, has gradually changed from the original negative treatment to active treatment. In addition to the standardized “three-step” pharmacological treatment advocated by the World Health Organization, active treatment also includes individualized and selective invasive pain treatment, such as radiation therapy, surgical treatment, nerve block and nerve destruction treatment.  In addition to clinical treatment, more important aspects are community and home care. In order to improve the analgesic effect and reduce the side effects of cancer pain patients in various disciplines, many foreign medical institutions have established pain services, consisting of experienced doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc., for advanced cancer pain.