Hefteh Natalia, Welch Olivia, Sheikh Mahdi, La Caze Adam, Parat Marie-Odile
School of Pharmacy, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
Genomic Epidemiology Branch, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
Br J Cancer. 2025 Apr 11. doi: 10.1038/s41416-025-03014-4.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) monographs recently classified opium consumption as carcinogenic to humans in certain organs, raising concerns regarding the effects of pharmaceutical opioids. This systematic review (Open Science Framework osf.io/xyg9p) evaluated whether opioid exposure causes organ-specific modulation of malignant processes in cancer cell culture studies.
We identified all research articles evaluating tumour modulation by opioids in vitro through 28/02/2024. Data on the organ of origin of cancer cells, opioid activity, opioid exposure, and cancer outcomes (tumour cell growth, metastasis, clonogenicity) were extracted. Statistical analyses were performed using Fisher's exact tests and multivariable logistic regression.
The anti-cancer outcome was the most prevalent (57%) while only 11% of experiments reported pro-cancer outcomes. A total of 230 publications, comprising 1465 experiments, were included. Low opioid concentrations (p = 0.0005), short exposure durations (p = 0.0035), and organs where cancer risk increases with opium use (p = 0.002), were associated with reporting of pro-cancer effects for opioid agonists.
The findings support a positive association between opioid exposure and growth of cancer cells from lung, bladder, larynx, pancreas, pharynx, stomach, or oesophagus and further reveal duration and concentration as critical factors in experiments evaluating the effects of opioids on cultured cancer cells.
国际癌症研究机构（IARC）专论最近将鸦片消费归类为对人体某些器官具有致癌性，这引发了人们对药用阿片类药物影响的担忧。本系统评价（开放科学框架osf.io/xyg9p）评估了在癌细胞培养研究中阿片类药物暴露是否会导致恶性过程的器官特异性调节。
我们检索至2024年2月28日，找出所有评估阿片类药物体外肿瘤调节作用的研究文章。提取有关癌细胞起源器官、阿片类药物活性、阿片类药物暴露和癌症结局（肿瘤细胞生长、转移、克隆形成能力）的数据。使用Fisher精确检验和多变量逻辑回归进行统计分析。
抗癌结局最为常见（57%），而只有11%的实验报告了促癌结局。共纳入230篇出版物，包含1465项实验。低阿片类药物浓度（p = 0.0005）、短暴露时间（p = 0.0035）以及使用鸦片会增加癌症风险的器官（p = 0.002），与阿片类激动剂促癌作用的报告相关。
研究结果支持阿片类药物暴露与来自肺、膀胱、喉、胰腺、咽、胃或食管的癌细胞生长之间存在正相关，并进一步揭示了持续时间和浓度是评估阿片类药物对培养癌细胞影响的实验中的关键因素。
