Across Europe and Israel, treatment of cancer pain is suboptimal. Pain and pain relief should be considered integral to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer; management guidelines should be revised to improve pain control in patients with cancer.

Breakthrough cancer pain is an extremely heterogeneous condition.

PM is taught in a substantial number of undergraduate medical programs at European universities, and a qualified teaching structure is emerging; however, there is a wide variation in the level of PM educational development between individual countries.

The Norwegian Doloplus-2 demonstrates satisfactory criterion validity and clinical value in this pilot study. However, the content of the instrument needs a general re-evaluation, especially with regard to the psychosocial items.