• Helen Laycock, Candice Ramdin, Justin Grayer, and BrownMatthew R DMRD0000-0002-4520-6462Department of Pain Medicine, The Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK.The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK..
• Department of Pain Medicine, Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, UK.
• Anaesthesia. 2025 Jan 8.

IntroductionAcute pain in cancer is an important but often overlooked feature of many patients' oncological journey. Cancer-related pain is associated commonly with more persistent pain states caused by both the disease and its treatment, but there are numerous causes of acute pain which can develop in patients with cancer. This pain is frequently severe, can be challenging to manage and its suboptimal control can directly impact on oncological outcomes. This narrative review provides an overview of several causes of acute pain in patients with cancer and management approaches.MethodsA focused literature review was conducted to encompass the search terms 'acute pain', 'oncology' and 'cancer' in adult and paediatric populations.ResultsAcute pain is common in patients with cancer with a number of pain generators identified. Broadly, these are disease- and treatment-related but commonality in pain mechanisms and features are present. Importantly, these pain states do not occur in isolation; a patient may experience multiple acute pain episodes during their oncology journey.DiscussionAs the oncological treatment landscape shifts and increasing numbers of novel treatments are employed, the number of causes of acute pain in patients with cancer rises. This pain is often managed by non-pain specialists and suboptimal control has a variety of deleterious effects. It is important that awareness of acute pain in the oncological population is increased and treatment approaches, which adopt a biopsychosocial structure, are optimised.© 2025 The Author(s). Anaesthesia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association of Anaesthetists.

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