Document resource
Many pains encountered in palliative care result from multiple pain mechanisms, eg, cancer pain may include inflammatory, bony, neuropathic, myofascial and/or visceral components. Not all such pains respond fully to opioids. Opioid-poorly-responsive pain (OPRP) is treated with non-opioid analgesics selected according to pain mechanism(s), tolerability and comorbidities. Conventionally, such analgesics are given via sequential trials one at a time (serial monotherapy, SMT). But SMT takes time; several treatment trials may be required before pain is satisfactorily controlled. Thus, faster selection methods are desirable.