Improving pain relief in a rural cancer center.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to describe barriers to cancer pain management and strategies for making improvements in an academic rural cancer center.

Overview: Rural communities pose unique challenges to cancer pain management because of their unique strengths and burdens. Successful strategies used by a comprehensive cancer center to improve pain management in rural New England are summarized.

Quality improvement of painful peripheral neuropathy.

Objectives: To use quality improvement methodology to improve the assessment and treatment of neuropathic pain caused by chemotherapy-related nerve injury.

Data Sources: Review and research articles, assessment scales, and textbooks.

Conclusions: Assessment and treatment algorithms improved peripheral neuropathy-related pain scores.

Neuropsychologic impact of standard-dose systemic chemotherapy in long-term survivors of breast cancer and lymphoma.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to compare the neuropsychologic functioning of long-term survivors of breast cancer and lymphoma who had been treated with standard-dose systemic chemotherapy or local therapy only.

Patients And Methods: Long-term survivors (5 years postdiagnosis, not presently receiving cancer treatment, and disease-free) of breast cancer or lymphoma who had been treated with systemic chemotherapy (breast cancer: n = 35, age, 59.1 +/- 10.