Gan To Kagaku Ryoho 2006 May; 33(5): 611-5 (Read article online)

Koshikawa T, Shimoyama N

Multi-disciplinary team work among visiting doctors, nurses, care managers and pharmacists located close to the patient's home is essential for smooth transition of a palliative care patient from hospital care to palliative home care and should be set up prior to the patient's discharge from the hospital. Palliative home care physicians should have knowledge of the fundamental support by the government to spare excessive cost to the patients. As for cancer pain management, opioid-centered analgesic therapies have lead to better quality home care for patients. In Japan, although oxycodone SRs and fentanyl patches are available besides morphine, there is no rescue opioid other than morphine. On the other hand,some cancer pain refractory to opioids such as neuropathic cancer pain should be carefully treated by adjuvant analgesics in conjunction with non-pharmacological treatments.