Abstract
Fifty-six consecutive patients with pain due to cancer were admitted to a prospective study designed to test a clinical staging system for cancer pain. The system classifies patients in stage 1 (good prognosis) to stage 3 (poor prognosis) according to the mechanism of pain, characteristics of pain, previous narcotic exposure, cognitive function, psychological distress, tolerance and past history of drug addiction or alcoholism. During day 1 patients were staged after being seen by one of the investigators. Patients were treated for 21 days, when a final diagnosis of pain control was made. Eighteen of 22 patients in stage 1 achieved good pain control (82%) vs. 2/22 patients in stage 3 (10%; P < 0.01). Sensitivity, specificity and negative predictive value of the system were 0.75, 0.86 and 0.80, respectively. We conclude that this is a simple and reliable system for clinical staging that can be used for clinical research and management of patients with cancer pain.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 203-209 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Pain |
| Volume | 37 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1989 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Cancer pain
- Edmonton staging system
- Pain management
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neurology
- Clinical Neurology
- Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine