UI - 000036

AU - Miser AW

AU - Dothage JA

AU - Wesley RA

AU - Miser JS

TI - The prevalence of pain in a pediatric and young adult cancer population

AB - The prevalence and nature of pain in the population of children and young adults with malignancy

treated by the Pediatric Branch of the National Cancer Institute were assessed over a 6 month period. One

hundred and thirty-nine patients were evaluated during 161 in-patient days and 195 out-patient clinic visits.

Approximately 50% of the patients assessed in the hospital and 25% of the patients assessed in the out-

patient clinic were found to be experiencing some degree of pain at the time of assessment. Therapy-related

pain predominated in both in-patients and out-patients; only one-third of the pain experienced by in-patients

and less than 20% of the pain experienced by out-patients was due to tumor. Tumor pain was due primarily

to bony invasion. In order to control pain in those individuals experiencing pain, narcotic analgesics were

being used by one-half of the in-patients and one-third of the out-patients. Overall pain control was good,

with the medium visual analogue scale score being 26 mm on a 0-100 mm scale. During the study period 7

patients were identified to have chronic pain for greater than 1 year following eradication of all known tumor

from the site of pain. One was receiving massive doses of narcotics (120 mg/day of methadone) apparently

out of proportion to his underlying pain

SO - Pain 1987;29:73-83