Dolor neuropático en paciente oncológico / Neuropathic pain in patients with cancer

Although pain is not an inevitable consequence of cancer, it remains the most feared. At present we have an importante accumulation of knowledge related to the prevention, early detection and management of the different types of cancer. It has been estimated that as many as 25 of patients with cancer through the world die without receiving adequate relief of pain. The major reason these patients continue to suffer is simply that available pain-relieving therapies are applied inadequately or inappropriately...The goal of pain management in patients with advanced disease is to provide control of pain that permits them to die in relative comfort. Narcotic analgesics with potentiating agents are generally necessary to achieve adequate control of severe cancer pain. The adjuvant therapy empoyed includes selective antidepressants, local anesthetics and anticonvulsant drugs...Also patients with cancer and a history of both alcohol and drugs-abuse, show a special differentiation against pain control. It is concluded that the prevalence of both neuropathic or mixed pain is high in the population of oncologic patients, where most of them can control the sympotoms with only opiates, even with a history of alcohol abuse. These aspects are detailed in the article.(AU)

Parálisis cordal y alcoholismo / Vocal cord paralysis and alcoholism

La parálisis recurrencial por alcoholismo es un hallazgo muy raro, si bien la literatura mundial menciona algunos casos. La inercia de las cuerdas vocales es debido a una neuropatía por probable déficit de vitamina B1 (tiamina). El siguiente trabajo relata una interesante manifestación clínica en un paciente alcohólico quien presentó disfonía, diagnosticándose paresia recurrencial izquierda cuya etiología, luego de descartar las causas más frecuentes y considerando que evolucionó favorablemente con vitamina B1, resultó ser una neuritis recurrencial alcohólica. (AU)