South African guidelines for the treatment of cancer pain: South African Cancer Pain Guidelines Working Group

The production of these guidelines, written by South African medical practitioners, is a most welcome and important step in the treatment of cancer pain in this country. The overall prevalence of pain in cancer patients is estimated to be 53%, and 64% in patients with advanced and metastatic disease. Too often, the only guidelines available to us are those written by practitioners in other countries which may be inappropriate for implementation here owing to the differing availability of drugs or disease profile.