ABSTRACT
This chapter considers all the patient's symptoms and all the information available to doctors and assesses the symptoms, signs and information given using this to choose the appropriate remedies for the problem, and offers extra information where available and appropriate. There may be more than one cause of the pain, and some pains may be due to conditions other than the cancer. Cancer pains may therefore be divided into opioid-responsive pain and opioid-non-responsive pain. Oral morphine is the strong opioid of choice for cancer pain. There is no 'standard dose' of morphine that can be universally applied when treating cancer pain. The correct dose for the individual patient is that which relieves their pain without causing unacceptable side-effects. Perhaps the pain is due to fear of increasing the opioid dose or fear of addiction expressed by both patient and professional.
