Prevalence, features, and validity of pain treatment in advanced cancer patients in Palliative Care Units in Spain. ALGOPAL study

Objective: to describe the features, treatment, side effects, and relief of pain in advanced cancer patients. Method: an observational multicenter study was carried out with advanced cancer patients who had chronic pain. Nineteen hospitals with palliative care units (either with inpatients or outpatients) were included. Only one questionnaire is administered. Results: 440 questionnaires were completed, half of them by inpatients, half of them by outpatients. All of them were interviewed on a selected day. 55% patients are over 65 years, 63% are male, and Karnofsky index is 50% of median value. The most frequent tumours are gastrointestinal, genitourinary, and pulmonary growths. Patients had pain for an average 9 months, and pain severity had a mean value of 5.11/10. The study showed that 26% of patients had good pain relief (ENV < 3); 45% of patients had poor prognosis factors for pain relief. 81% of patients received potent opioids. Most commonly used opioids included transdermal fentanyl (48%) and morphine (37%); 51% of patients had opioid-related toxicity. Conclusions: patients had a high prevalence of pain for long periods of time. Most patients received potent opioids. Transdermal fentanyl and morphine are the most commonly used medicines. According to results obtained, we considerer that pain relief could be optimized in our units.