A patient who has had cancer for 1 year uses a fentanyl transdermal patch for pain relief. The patient reports having three or four episodes of pain (which she rates as 8 or 9 on a scale of 1 to 10)each day,and each episode lasts 15 to 30 minutes. The nurse will contact the provider to:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Breakthrough pain can occur in patients who otherwise have well-controlled pain,and it should be managed with extra doses of short-acting,strong opioids. This pain is moderate to severe and is not neuropathic,so adjuvant analgesics or NSAIDs are not useful. Increasing the dose of the long-acting opioid would not alleviate breakthrough pain.

A Patient Who Has Had Cancer for 1 Year Uses