Pain in the head and neck cancer patient: Changes over treatment

Abstract

The incidence, severity, and location of pain was evaluated in 30 head and neck cancer patients prior to treatment after the first phase of their treatment and upon the completion of treatment. The incidence of pain was relatively high (40%-70%) and tended to increase slightly over treatment. Patients having advanced disease (stage III or IV) had a higher incidence of pain. Pain severity ratings were stable over treatment. Pain was located close to tumor or incision sites, and a trend for patients to report a greater number of pain sites over treatment was noted. While medical status variables (disease stage and site) were found to predict pain status after the initial phase of cancer treatment, initial pain measurements were more likely to predict pain status at the completion of treatment.

A qualitative study of head and neck cancer

“…The last of these remains one of the more significant challenges to effective treatment in the long term, as the overall survival rates for SCCHN have not radically improved since the 1970s [3,15,16,22,23,24,25,26,27,28]. In addition, pain remains a common symptom in SCCHN patients and suffering has been underevaluated in patients with primary stage SCCHN [15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37].…”

Pain as sign of recurrent disease in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

“…1 Head and neck cancer may lead to severe pain complaints. 2,3 Besides certain specific symptoms like hoarseness and swallowing complaints, the symptoms of the disease are to a considerable extent determined by pain. The rich innervation of the head and neck area by the sensory cranial nerves V, IX, and X and the cervical spinal nerves C1-C4 contribute greatly.…”

“…2,3,8,9 Because pain may be the first symptom of recurrent disease, we have retrospectively analyzed the importance of pain assessment and the diagnosis of tumor recurrence with special reference to referred pain.…”

Pain Control in Head and Neck Cancer

“…A higher incidence of pain was noted in more advanced disease i.e. stages III or IV (Keefe et al, 1986). A recent study showed that a third of patients who attend head and neck cancer outpatients had pain from any cause within the previous seven days, with over two-thirds of those having severe pain (Williams et al, 2010).…”

“…The prevalence of pain at diagnosis of head and neck cancers vary from 40% to 84% (Keefe et al, 1986;Chaplin, 1999;Epstein, 1993;Saxena et al, 1995). A higher incidence of pain was noted in more advanced disease i.e.…”