[Pain in tumor patients and indications for psychopharmaceutic agents]

Pain involves both somatic and psychological processes, and often requires in cancer patients a multidisciplinary management approach. Psychotropic medications can be helpful as part of adjuvant pharmacological treatment of pain and can be beneficial especially in cancer patients. Anxiety and depression, which may be associated with cancer, can influence the pain experience and can be managed symptomatically with psychotropic drugs. In addition, some psychotropic drugs have analgetic properties, or may be used to reduce some side effects of narcotics.