Symptom management for incurable head and neck cancer

The overall cure rate for cancer of the head and neck is about 50%. For those patients who will die of their disease, active palliative care is needed. This article seeks to present a practical approach to managing the symptoms, especially pain, suffered by patients with incurable malignancy. (See related article, Using Opioids to Control Suffering: A Painstaking Approach, on page 20 of the February, 1997 WMJ.) While the focus is on head and neck cancer, the principles and much of the information contained herein is applicable to patients dying from other types of malignant disease.