Reticulotomia Rostral do Mesencéfalo para Tratamento de Dor Oncológica

Cancer pain is one of the main stigmas on oncologic patients. Long considered irreversible and irremediable, forcing patients to live with it through their lifetime. The surgical treatment of cancer pain has ablative and non-ablative options, including rostral mesencephalic reticulotomy. We described a 08 cases series of oncologic patients who underwent midbrain rostral reticulotomy for intractable pain treated at Brazilian midwest reference center of oncology, Araújo Jorge Hospital. The results were compared with literature review to demonstrate that the efficacy of the main articles published are reproducible in a safe way, resulting in improvement in the quality of life, the pain perception, as well as the suffering related to complex, mixed characteristics (neuropathic / nociceptive) oncologic pain related to skull, face, neck, and scapular girdle, refractory to the conservative treatment as recommended by WHO`s pain scale. Our experience when compared with literature has shown that stereotactic rostral reticulotomy is a very valid method for the treatment of chronic oncologic pain syndrome, even when the predominance of pain is neuropathic or even in deafferentation pain.