Adult Cancer Pain, Version 3.2019, NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology.

In recent years, the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Adult Cancer Pain have undergone substantial revisions focusing on the appropriate and safe prescription of opioid analgesics, optimization of nonopioid analgesics and adjuvant medications, and integration of nonpharmacologic methods of cancer pain management. This selection highlights some of these changes, covering topics on management of adult cancer pain including pharmacologic interventions, nonpharmacologic interventions, and treatment of specific cancer pain syndromes. The complete version of the NCCN Guidelines for Adult Cancer Pain addresses additional aspects of this topic, including pathophysiologic classification of cancer pain syndromes, comprehensive pain assessment, management of pain crisis, ongoing care for cancer pain, pain in cancer survivors, and specialty consultations.

Inpatient Palliative Care for Neurological Disorders: Lessons from a Large Retrospective Series.

Background: Patients with neurological disorders are the second most common patient population to receive inpatient palliative care services after cancer; however, there have been few reports describing the characteristics and needs of this population.

Objective: To understand which patients with neurological diagnoses utilized these services, reasons for consultation, and whether patterns of use changed over time.

Design: Retrospective case series.

Characteristics associated with higher cost per day or longer length of stay in hospitalized patients who died during the hospitalization or were discharged to hospice.

Background: Palliative care has been recommended as an approach to improve the quality of care for patients with advanced illness, while achieving hospital cost savings. However, studies are lacking that identify hospitalized patients who are more likely to have higher cost per day or length of stay (LOS) who may benefit from palliative care consultation.

Objective: Identify characteristics associated with higher cost per day or longer LOS in hospitalized patients at the end of life--those likely to benefit from palliative care consultation.