A model of acute symptom control unit: Pain Relief and Palliative Care Unit of La Maddalena Cancer Center.

Palliative care in Italy was provided solely on a home care basis until a couple of years ago. In recent years different realities have been created according to personal experience, quite apart from new resources provided by the National Health System. The first Pain Relief and Palliative Care Unit in Sicily, the largest region in Italy, was established in March 1999. Most members of the regular staff of this Unit have a background in anesthesiology. Activity in the Unit has grown progressively, with 460 admissions in the last year. The characteristics of the first 1,000 patients admitted, the principal protocols for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, such as those for hitherto intractable pain, nutrition and hydration, interventional procedures for symptom control, and emerging problems, a project called "Island with no pain," and activities in the fields of formation and research are described.