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Causes of Pain

Pain in patients with cancer can be from many sources, and establishing the cause will help make managing it easier. 

Pain may be:

• caused by the cancer itself (this is the most common cause)
• related to the cancer (e.g. muscle spasm, lymphoedema, constipation)
• related to anticancer treatment (e.g. chemotherapy induced mucositis, chronic post surgical scar pain)
• caused by concurrent disease (e.g osteoarthritis, spondylosis)

Many patients have multiple pains from one or more causes.  The cancer itself can cause pain through:

• Extension into soft tissues
• visceral involvement
• bone involvement
• nerve injury or compression
• raising intracranial pressure

Once the cause of the pain is identified, we can establish the type of pain, and better focus the treatment.

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