Gac Med Mex
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Within a conceptualization concerning the health-disease process as a whole (which systematically correlates its biological, psychological, social and historical aspects), it becomes very difficult to find something in the universe involving humankind, without any direct or indirect relationship with that vital process. This fact had expanded medicine toward a very extensive and complex field of knowledge and practices. Just considering it from the scientific perspective, different and opposing acquaintances and research methods vie with each other, equally claiming their own worth and stature within science. ⋯ In spite of the fact that it constituted, in itself, an epistemological position, being generalized also among biomedical scientists, there is in medicine at least disdain against the philosophy of science. Nevertheless, it is objectively indispensable. So, the present essay is presented in this sense, through the analytic characterization of the prototypic epistemologies and their relationships with medicine throughout history.
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Comparative Study
[Immediate-acting oral morphine sulfate in patients with cancer pain].
In this article, we describe our experience with oral morphine for the treatment of patients with cancer pain who were referred to a Palliative Care Unit. Morphine was used in 3,399 days treatment with an average of 65 days per patient. In 50 patients (96%), there was a decreased intensity of pain from severe (Visual Analogue Scale average (VAS) 8.7) to mild (VAS average 1.9). ⋯ Even though most authors recommend morphine q4h, in our population q6h was enough to achieve pain control in 83% of patients. It should be known by the medical population that morphine is essential therapy for pain in cancer patients. This study confirms that morphine is an excellent drug for the control of pain in cancer patients, with minimal dosages and controllable side effects.