THE CONTROL OF INTRACTABLE PAIN IN LUMBAR REGION, PELVIS AND LOWER EXTREMITIES

Abstract

The intense, intractable pain associated with primary or metastatic growths in the spine has always elicited the sympathy of the medical profession, but our efforts to afford adequate relief have in general been unsatisfactory. Almost as futile have been our attempts to alleviate the pain of inoperable uterine carcinoma with extensive pelvic metastases and of advanced malignant disease in the lower extremities. This pain, while sometimes not as severe as that associated with spinal cord lesions, is still accountable for an untold amount of suffering. The routine administration of morphine in ever increasing doses and at shorter intervals has been almost universally accepted as the only palliative means at our disposal. Those of us, however, who have seen these patients linger on week after week and even month after month, begging for something to relieve their suffering, have felt at times as though almost any means is justifiable. Unfortunately morphine,