Pain and Breast Cancer Surgery

Abstract This chapter presents the case of a 52-year-old woman suffering from shoulder pain after mastectomy with lymph node dissection. However, her pain is not neuropathic but, rather, related to adhesive capsulitis. Pain is common after mastectomy and may be neuropathic or nociceptive. Patients who undergo breast cancer surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy are at risk for several types of neuropathic pain, but nociceptive pain after mastectomy with or without radiotherapy is even more common. Particularly after a certain age, these patients may also have chronic pain independently of surgery or radiotherapy. It may be difficult to differentiate distinct pain mechanisms when several types of pains are present in the same neuroanatomical territory, and this may require screening questionnaires.