Clinical guideline for pharmacological management of cancer pain: the Japanese Society of Palliative Medicine recommendations.

Pain is the most frequent and distressing symptom in cancer patients. As part of a worldwide effort to improve the quality of pain control, several clinical guidelines for the management of cancer pain have been published and revised in the last decade. The Japanese Society of Palliative Medicine first published a Japanese clinical guideline for the management of cancer pain in 2000. Since then, many clinical studies concerning cancer pain management have been conducted, new drugs have become available in Japan and the methodology of developing a guideline has been refined. Therefore, we decided to develop a novel clinical guideline. This review paper summarizes the recommendations and the rationales of this new clinical guideline for the pharmacological management of cancer pain. In addition, a short summary of the clinical guideline development process is provided. This new Japanese Society of Palliative Medicine guideline highlights the importance of conducting well-designed studies to identify the best practices in cancer pain management.