BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Cancer pain of patients submitted to surgery should be managed during their whole clinical evolution, taking into consideration their physiological and emotional needs. Based on that, a question was posed: "How is the immediate postoperative pain management of cancer patients by the Perioperative Nursing team?" This study aimed at reflecting about immediate postoperative cancer pain management by the perioperative nursing team. CONTENTS: This was a literature research with qualitative approach, based on content analysis. Data were collected from Scielo, LILACS and Medline databases, from the Virtual Health Library platform (BIREME). The objectives of the study were complete articles online published by national and international journals in English and Portuguese, indexed from 1999 to 2011 as from Health Sciences Keywords (DECS): "nursing care", "pain", "postoperative period" and "cancer", being those considered inclusion criteria. Information was interpreted according to a hermeneutic view. After organization, the following categories were obtained: "Postoperative cancer pain management represented by (de) humanized and subjective nursing assistance"; "postoperative cancer pain management represented by scales measurements and signs and symptoms"; "Postoperative cancer pain management represented by nursing interventions". CONCLUSION: Care of cancer patients submitted to surgery requires the development of specific evaluation and therapeutic skills by the perioperative nursing team, who will intermediate humanized pain management.
Cancer; Nursing care; Pain; Postoperative period