Personalized Pain Goal as an Outcome Measure in Routine Cancer Pain Assessment.

Background: There is currently no universally accepted outcome measure in cancer pain management. The personalized pain goal (PPG) has been shown to be a relevant outcome measure. We examined its use in routine outpatient practice and compared it with the clinically important difference (CID, ≥2 points or 30%), a pain outcome measure frequently used in several clinical studies.

Assessing the prognostic features of a pain classification system in advanced cancer patients.

Purpose: The Edmonton Classification System for Cancer Pain (ECS-CP) has been shown to predict pain management complexity based on five features: pain mechanism, incident pain, psychological distress, addictive behavior, and cognitive function. The main objective of our study was to explore the association between ECS-CP features and pain treatment outcomes among outpatients managed by a palliative care specialist-led interdisciplinary team.

Methods: Initial and follow-up clinical information of 386 eligible supportive care outpatients were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed.