Postgraduate medical journal
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Pain management is an integral component of comprehensive cancer care. The combined goals of optimal comfort and optimal function require a working understanding of how pain therapy interacts with cancer and cancer therapy. The two main aspects of cancer which affect pain management are the cancer's treatability and its non-pain pathophysiology. ⋯ Pain therapy can impair cancer therapy by augmenting or complicating cancer therapy's adverse effects. Pain therapy can enhance cancer therapy by improving organ function and patient performance status permitting previously limited or contraindicated cancer therapies to be given. Five case studies are presented to illustrate how effective integration of pain management into comprehensive cancer care is mandatory for optimal care of cancer patients and their families.
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A 77 year old woman, with chronic immobility, developed bed sores which became infested with maggots. This progressed to cutaneous myiasis which is an uncommon complication of this particular phenomenon.
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Case Reports
Diagnostic aspiration of an iatrogenic hydrothorax following subclavian catheterization.
Central venous catheterization is not without hazard. Inadvertent placement in the pleural space can occur without the development of a pneumothorax and pressure measurements may appear misleadingly normal. This case report illustrates an effective method of diagnosing and draining an iatrogenic hydrothorax which resulted in this way.