M. D. Anderson Faculty Help Develop National Pain Management Guidelines

Three faculty members at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center are major contributors to the new cancer pain treatment guidelines released recently by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Cancer Society.

The NCCN/ACS Cancer Pain Treatment Guidelines for Patients give cancer patients access to information about pain treatment options offered at the nation's leading cancer centers. Originally devised for cancer specialists by the NCCN, the guidelines are translated into easy-to-understand terms for the general public by the ACS.

"Undertreating pain is a significant public health problem in the cancer treatment process. With the release of these guidelines, cancer patients are offered a simplified, well-thought-out approach to basic cancer pain management," said Dr. Charles Cleeland, director of the institution's pain research group and one of the three M. D. Anderson faculty members who led development of these new guidelines. "Every patient has the right to appropriate pain assessment and pain management. The guidelines offer an effective tool for cancer patients to use in talking to their doctors and nurses about their pain and working together to find the best treatment," he said.

Dr. Cleeland, who holds the institution's endowed McCullough Professorship of Cancer Research, said misperceptions about the likelihood of drug addiction and abuse of analgesics have led some cancer patients to avoid seeking appropriate pain control.

"Often, physicians are not willing to prescribe potent enough drugs to manage the pain of their patients, and in turn, patients are not willing to take strong medication due to fear of addiction. For physicians, the guidelines specify at what level of pain severity certain drugs should be prescribed. For patients, the guidelines should greatly reduce the fear of addiction and offer the reassurance that their pain due to cancer can, and should be, controlled," said Dr. Cleeland.

Along with Dr. Cleeland, M .D. Anderson faculty members Drs. Nora Janjan, professor of radiation oncology, and Samuel Hassenbusch III, associate professor of neurosurgery, participated in developing the national guidelines.

The NNCN/ACS Cancer Pain Treatment Guidelines for Patients is one in a series developed by the NCCN/ACS partnership. Currently, the NCN/ACS patient guidelines series includes breast, prostate and colon and rectal cancers with future guidelines being developed for lung, ovarian and nonmel-anoma skin cancers, myeloma, nausea and vomiting and cancer-related fatigue. All guidelines are also available in Spanish.

The NCCN is a coalition of 19 cancer centers nationwide created in 1995, with M. D. Anderson as one of its founding members, to bring together knowledge and expertise of physicians at member centers and make this information available to the public. The American Cancer Society is a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem.

The public may access the NCCN/ACS Cancer Pain Treatment Guidelines for Patients by calling M. D. Anderson's Information Line, 1-800-392-1611, option 3; the National Comprehensive Care Network, 1-888-909-NCCN or The American Cancer Society, 1-800-ACS-2345. The guidelines are also available via the Internet at http://www.mdanderson.org, or by e-mail at patientinformation@nccn.org.

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©2006 Texas Medical Center

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