title: Breakthrough pain: definition and management.
abstract: Breakthrough pains are highly prevalent but poorly characterized phenomena that may be experienced by the cancer patient. The term encompasses a diverse group of transient pains that vary in their relationship to the fixed analgesic dose, temporal characteristics, precipitating events, predictability, pathophysiology, and etiology. Successful management is usually possible using a combination of primary oncologic interventions, optimization of the fixed analgesic regimen, and one or more of a variety of analgesic modalities, the mainstay of which is pharmacotherapy with a so-called "rescue-dose."
authors.affiliation: Pain Service Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
authors.forename: R K
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Portenoy
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Hagen
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000150:complications*; D010146:Pain / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology; D059408:Pain Management; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000379:methods*; D015995:Prevalence