Abstract: Background and purpose: Cancer-related pain is one of the most important symptoms of patients with advanced cancer. Chemotherapy sometimes induces peripheral neuropathy and pain. These symptoms seriously affect patients’ quality of life. Cancer pain assessment is now achieved by the subjective scales of patients, but lacking objective measurement. In this study, we used the neurotic electrophysiological method by way of PainVision system (PV system) to evaluate cancer pain quantitatively to detect and analyze degree of chemotherapy-induced neuropathy. Methods: We obtained numerical rating scale (NRS) scores from patients receiving analgesics and calculated the PainRatio from PV system at the same time. Then we analyzed the relationship between NRS and PainRatio scores. We detected current perception threshold (CPT) levels of patients receiving chemotherapy to find the correlation between chemotherapy and CPT level, and attempt to evaluate chemotherapy-induced neuropathy. Results: PainRatio scores were linearly associated with NRS scores (Pearson correlation coefficient=0.849, P<0.001). Patients with neuropathy symptoms got higher CPTs. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between patients treated with oxaliplatin, paclitaxel and other agents. Conclusion: PainVision system can be used in cancer pain assessment quantitatively, and be helpful in cancer pain assessment objectively. Patients with defined neuropathy showed higher CPTs, indicating the potential clinical value of PV system in detecting and evaluating chemotherapy-induced neuropathy.

Key words: Cancer pain assessment, PainVision system, Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy