ABSTRACT
Diagnosing and treating neuropathic pain is a major challenge for palliativists, to the same extent as for neurologists, oncologists, and pain specialists. Neuropathic pain can be spontaneous with an episodic or continuous temporal profile. Neuropathic pain is also evoked. The evoking stimulus may cause massive activation of ectopic sensory discharges by acting on mechanosensitive neural pathways. Neuropathic pain prevalence is much higher between patients affected by neurodegenerative disease compared to cancer patients. Most patients with cancer complain of pain in the course of their disease, in a large prevalence as a consequence of the nervous system involvement. Direct activity of the growing tumors causes nerve trunk, nerve plexus, or dorsal roots external compression and/or infiltration. Painful radiculopathy in patients with cancer is usually related to direct compression or invasion of nerve roots by vertebral and paraspinal cancers or leptomeningeal metastases.
