RESUMO
Although pain is not an inevitable consequence of cancer, it remains the most feared. At present we have an importante accumulation of knowledge related to the prevention, early detection and management of the different types of cancer. It has been estimated that as many as 25 of patients with cancer through the world die without receiving adequate relief of pain. The major reason these patients continue to suffer is simply that available pain-relieving therapies are applied inadequately or inappropriately...The goal of pain management in patients with advanced disease is to provide control of pain that permits them to die in relative comfort. Narcotic analgesics with potentiating agents are generally necessary to achieve adequate control of severe cancer pain. The adjuvant therapy empoyed includes selective antidepressants, local anesthetics and anticonvulsant drugs...Also patients with cancer and a history of both alcohol and drugs-abuse, show a special differentiation against pain control. It is concluded that the prevalence of both neuropathic or mixed pain is high in the population of oncologic patients, where most of them can control the sympotoms with only opiates, even with a history of alcohol abuse. These aspects are detailed in the article.