Prevalencia del dolor en enfermos oncológicos. Dolor irruptivo

Pain has traditionally been a common and dreaded phenomenon in cancer and continues to be so. Breakthrough pain is an entity related to chronic cancer pain that was first recognized some time ago. However, depending on the context in which it has been studied, breakthrough pain has been viewed from distinct perspectives. In the last few years, major efforts have been made to define and characterize breakthrough pain from a multidisciplinary perspective, determine its prevalence, and provide an individualized therapeutic approach, culminating with a meta-analysis in 2014. The criteria for breakthrough pain are the presence of background pain that is well controlled with scheduled background analgesia and episodes of pain exacerbations with or without an identified trigger. The data suggest the at least one out of every two cancer patients (nearly one in three) will experience breakthrough pain at some time during the course of their disease.