Effect of dose escalation with single opioid, fentanyl matrix, for current cancer pain management: Multicenter, prospective, observational study.

e19538 Background: It is clinical experience that end-of-dose failure was commonly observed and many cancer patients increase the frequency of opioid administration because of that. Another treatment option could be to increase the dose of the opioid administered. High-dose fentanyl matrix use is known to be effective in controlling pain in cancer patients. To measure effectiveness of increase in single dose of fentanyl matrix in patients whose pain was not controlled sufficiently with the analgesic use in real practice at the investigator’s discretion, we perform the study. Methods: A multi-center, open-label, prospective, observational study was conducted in 30 hospitals in Korea between August and December 2008. Results: 452 patients were enrolled. A total 404 patients completed the study. Mean pain intensity decresed from 5.27 on the second to 3.37 at the end of the trial. There was significant difference in pain intensity (p < 0.001) between first and last visit. The percentage of pain intensity diff...