Using three scenarios to explain life expectancy in advanced cancer: attitudes of patients, family members, and other healthcare professionals.

Aim: To evaluate a web-based tool for estimating and explaining three scenarios for expected survival time to people with advanced cancer (patients), their family members (FMs), and other healthcare professionals (HCPs).

Methods: Thirty-three oncologists estimated the "median survival of a group of similar patients" for patients seeking quantitative prognostic information. The web-based tool generated worst-case, most likely, and best-case scenarios for survival based on the oncologist's estimate.

Breakthrough pain characteristics and syndromes in patients with cancer pain. An international survey.

Breakthrough pain (BKP) is a transitory flare of pain that occurs on a background of relatively well controlled baseline pain. Previous surveys have found that BKP is highly prevalent among patients with cancer pain and predicts more severe pain, pain-related distress and functional impairment, and relatively poor quality of life. An international group of investigators assembled by a task force of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) evaluated the prevalence and characteristics of BKP as part of a prospective, cross-sectional survey of cancer pain.