What is the use of an implantable epidural infusion system for advanced cancer pain?

  A considerable proportion of advanced cancer patients are complicated by severe pain all over the body. The severe pain seriously affects the patients’ life and confidence in fighting against tumors, depletes the patients’ physique and makes their immunity against tumor cells decrease rapidly. Internationally, analgesic treatment and anti-tumor treatment for patients with advanced cancer pain are in the same important position. A lot of studies have shown that good analgesia can significantly enhance patients’ physical fitness and immunity, improve patients’ confidence in treating tumors, multiply patients’ survival time, and let patients “survive with cancer” without pain. At present, the treatment of advanced cancer pain in China is mainly based on oral or intramuscular morphine, but the analgesic effect is poor and there are many side effects, so it cannot provide good analgesia for advanced cancer pain patients. Intradural implantable drug infusion system for the treatment of cancer pain is internationally recognized as the best solution for the treatment of advanced cancer pain.  The so-called implantable epidural infusion system is a catheter implanted under the skin, with one end leading to the spinal epidural cavity and the other end connected to a drug delivery pump buried under the skin, through which the drug is delivered to the spinal epidural. Compared with traditional analgesic methods, the amount of drugs used in the implantable epidural infusion system is very small (only a few tens to a few hundredths of the traditional drug delivery methods), but its analgesic effect is very strong, with few side effects, and patients can walk freely after treatment, and their daily life such as eating and living is not affected. This method is very traumatic and inexpensive, and patients can go home after 3-5 days of hospitalization, and can take care of their daily lives completely. In contrast, traditional analgesic methods such as intramuscular injection of morphine require long-term hospitalization because of many side effects, high cost and poor analgesic effect, which seriously affects patients’ quality of life and the body’s ability to resist tumors.  The hospital cooperates to carry out epidural implantation infusion system implantation for the treatment of advanced cancer pain, including advanced pancreatic cancer, rectal cancer bone metastasis, lung cancer bone metastasis, liver cancer abdominal metastasis and other advanced cancer pain, so that many patients can stay away from the torture of cancer pain and live with cancer without pain. The clinical application of our department shows that the implantable epidural infusion system can provide strong analgesia and obviously enhance patients’ courage and confidence in life; patients can completely take care of themselves in daily life and their physical fitness is obviously enhanced, and their survival period is several times longer than that of patients with advanced cancer pain who use traditional analgesic methods.  In China, most people are aware of the “three-step” treatment plan for advanced cancer pain. However, clinical facts show that the traditional “three-step” treatment plan is far from providing satisfactory analgesia to patients with advanced cancer pain. Patients with advanced cancer pain need further “fourth-step” treatment options, and the epidural drug infusion system is one of the best choices for “fourth-step” treatment options.