Abstract
Pain is a complex phenomenon that is considered a symptom of acute conditions and a syndrome if it evolves into a chronic stage. Pain can constitute a short informative or warning signal that is not always necessary to be treated, but it highlights some adverse reactions of the organism or warning when a certain cause due to which an organism is harmed appears.
The pain is described as acute, while sometimes the notion „normal pain“ is used for the pain regularly encountered in sports, after some exertion or in degenerative diseases of old age. Chronic pain is a continuing progression of painful symptomatology and it often has important bio–psycho–social consequences.
It needs to be therapeutically addressed in virtually all cases. In our paper, we focus in particular on the principles of pharmacotherapy, which are based on the Guidelines drafted by a large group of experts.
In recent years, with the arrival of new potent and rapidly acting opioids for chronic pain conditions, particularly in oncology, attention has been paid to the diagnostics and treatment of breakthrough pain, which is a frequent finding in the treatment of patients with slow release opioids. A special paragraph is devoted to the issue.