Pain follows many cancer patients to the end, Feb. 12, 2010.
DISTURBING numbers of cancer patients suffer unrelieved pain, with many needing to be sedated for the last week of their lives to free them from suffering, a pain specialist says.
Professor Michael Cousins, director of the Pain Management Research Institute at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, said yesterday that nearly half of all cancer patients suffered unrelieved pain, with 80 per cent experiencing it during their final stage of life.
Speaking ahead of a national pain medicine summit next month, Professor Cousins said the statistics were ''disturbing'' and ''unacceptable'' because research showed about 90 per cent of cancer patients' pain could be managed with existing treatments.
''It's amazing that we have this in a civilised country, which you would think would be pretty focused on human rights,'' he said.
Professor Cousins, who is a pain medicine and palliative care specialist, said about 10 per cent of cancer patients had pain that was so difficult to treat at the end of their life that they would be given drugs to sedate them until they die.
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''If someone is still suffering a lot and we can't relieve their pain and breathlessness and severe nausea and severe anxiety, then I would say we might have to create a bit of sedation,'' he said. ''Surely that's better than someone dying in excruciating pain. That's not killing the patient, but treating their symptoms in an effective way.
''It could be several days then, or as much as a week [before the person dies].''
Professor Cousins said although there had been no controlled research of ''terminal sedation'', he did not believe it caused death.
''The idea that this is euthanasia is wrong, it's a long way from it,'' he said.
Cancer patients' pain will be discussed at the summit.
According to the Cancer Council Australia, about 50 per cent of men and one-third of women will be diagnosed with cancer before the age of 85.
By Julia Medew, The Age
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Michael Cousins is Professor & Head of Dept of Anaesthesia & Pain Management, University of Sydney, Royal North Shore Hospital.
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