Pain of Terminal Cancer Patients

The belief that cancer inevitably leads to a painful death is widespread. This may contribute to society's "cancerophobia" with subsequent frequent delays in seeking medical attention for suspected malignant neoplasms. We evaluated the degree of pain experienced by dying patients, with and without cancer, at a large medical center. Patterns of analgesic administration and physician and nurse progress notes demonstrated that patients dying with cancer had significantly higher preterminal daily pain ratings and significantly fewer pain-free days than patients dying without cancer (P less than .01). Nevertheless, approximately one quarter of cancer patients died without any pain or analgesic administration. A painful death from cancer is thus not inevitable.