Medical News Today -- A series of therapeutic innovations that will be introduced at the EAPC Congress should further improve medical provisioning of palliative patients in matters of symptom control. A serious problem involving cancer patients is so-called “breakthrough pain": this is an instantaneous intensive sharp pain, additional to “all-over” dull pain, that usually lasts only a half-hour to one hour and reaches its highest intensity some minutes after the outbreak. More than 85 percent of cancer patients suffer from this form of pain. It is enormously burdensome for palliative patients and particularly difficult to control, because the unpredictable breakthrough attacks require an enormously rapid effectiveness of the analgesic, something many agents and forms of medication cannot provide. The full effect of conventional orally administered opioids is achieved only about 35 to 45 minutes after intake - much too late to deal with the breakthrough pain. “Several new and efficient possibilities for the struggle against breakthrough pain will be presented at the EAPC Congress,” Professor Kress noted.
