International Journal of Medical Laboratory Research (IJMLR)

COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF EFFICACY OF STANDARD ANALGESICS IN PALLIATION OF CANCER PAIN

 

AR Simon, PL Palatty*, S Abraham, KR Thilakchand, T George, S Rao, MS Baliga

 

ABSTRACT:Background: Pain is a prevalent symptom experienced by cancer patients and its management in most set up has been weak. In the present study, we assessed the efficacy of the analgesics in cancer patients with pain. Methods: This was a prospective study and was done with cancer patients with severe pain. The patients were asked to rate the severity of the pain on the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) score and prescribed with the standard analgesic drug. They were then again asked to rate the decrease in the pain at various post drug administration time (15 min to 3 hr) using the NRS. Results: It was found that the out of 150 patients, 73 received tab morphine (10 mg orally every 4 hrs), 42 patients received a combination of tramadol and paracetamol (32.5mg+325mg) 8th hr, 15 patients received tab tramadol (50mg) 8th hr, 12 patients received tab paracetamol (500mg) 8th hr, 8 patients who were in very severe pain received morphine 10 mg iv diluted in 100ml normal saline and given every 4th hourly. Morphine was the analgesic of choice for mitigating severe cancer pain. The non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents (NSAID) either alone or in combination with a weak opioid was also found to be effective in reducing medium pain.  Conclusion: Analgesic therapy alleviates cancer pain in its multitude form. Morphine was the most common analgesic used with the NRS ranging from severe to very severe and found to be very useful.

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KEY WORDS: Pain; analgesics; Numeric Rating Scale; morphine; tramadol; paracetamol

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