Stein C, Schäfer M, Hassan A H
Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine and Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIH Baltimore, MD, USA.
Ann Med. 1995 Apr;27(2):219-21. doi: 10.3109/07853899509031962.
Recent experimental and clinical research has demonstrated that opioids can produce potent and receptor-specific analgesic effects outside the central nervous system. Opioid receptors are localized on peripheral terminals of sensory nerves and their endogenous ligands, opioid peptides, have been discovered in immune cells within inflamed tissue. Many controlled clinical studies confirm the experimental data. These findings open up the exciting perspective of the development of an entirely novel generation of peripherally active opioid analgesics devoid of centrally mediated side effects.
