[Pain and fatigue in tumor patients]

Diagnosis, assessment and treatment of pain are probably among the most significant achievements of modern medicine. Today patients with neoplastic diseases must be much less afraid of devastating pain than only a few years ago. According to the WHO 90% of the tumor-associated pain should be controlled, provided the available knowledge is effectively applied. Fatigue is increasingly recognized as a future major problem in these patients and it also is a sign of consuming disease processes. Subjectivity of both aforementioned symptoms requires also a subjective assessment i.e. measurements taken by the patient himself and acceptance of this self-assessment by those providing care. Fatigue, like pain is not only explained by biologic mechanisms but also understood as multidimensional concept including psychological aspects and social environment. Apart from pain-research, the recording of the course of fatigue-states, the definition of qualitative and quantitative aspects of fatigue and the development of therapeutic approaches to fatigue, will be objects of future research. The recognition of receptor-systems for pain evoke the hope for receptor-involvement in fatigue and the possibility for drug-receptor interactions. Even then these receptors will belong to individuals.