ReviewFrontiers in immunology2019
Do All Opioid Drugs Share the Same Immunomodulatory Properties? A Review From Animal and Human Studies.
Review in Frontiers in immunology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 85 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
85 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 132 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evaluation of Buprenorphine Rotation in Patients Receiving Long-term Opioids for Chronic Pain: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2021Pooled it
- [Recommendations of the second update of the LONTS guidelines : Long-term opioid therapy for chronic noncancer pain].Schmerz (Berlin, Germany) · 2020Pooled it
- Desflurane versus sevoflurane and postoperative inflammatory biomarkers in older adults undergoing minor- to moderate-risk noncardiac surgery.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- A Comparison of Tegileridine Fumarate versus Sufentanil on the Quality of Postoperative Recovery After Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial.Drug design, development and therapy · 2026Trial
- Comparison of remimazolam besylate and dexmedetomidine on stress response and immune balance in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome.Irish journal of medical science · 2025Trial
- Safety and efficacy of low-dose esketamine in laparoscopic cholecystectomy: a prospective, double-blind randomized controlled trial.BMC anesthesiology · 2024Trial
- Opioids and immunosuppression in patients with cancer.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Review
- Association between opioid use and treatment discontinuation in patients receiving nivolumab: a real-world database study.Supportive care in cancer : official journal of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer · 2026Article
- Mapping opioid exposure through prescription data and postmortem analysis of opioid drugs in multiple tissues.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2026Article
- Sedation as an Immunomodulator of Inflammatory Responses in the Lung-Brain Axis of ARDS.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Predictors of severe immune-related adverse events during first-line immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for advanced non-small cell lung cancer.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Targeting Leukopoiesis: Pharmacological and Biotechnological Strategies for the Treatment of Leukopenia.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- The impact of potential food allergen exposure on wound healing after malignant tumor surgery: immune tolerance alterations and clinical risk assessment.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Deciphering the impact of genetic variants on vulnerability to Opioid Use Disorder.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Article
- Precision Adjuvant Strategies in Vaccine Development for Substance Use Disorders: Variability and Mechanistic Insights.Pharmaceutics · 2025Review
- Disruption of DNA methylation underpins the neuroinflammation induced by targeted CNS radiotherapy.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Considerations for Care of the Cancer Patient.International anesthesiology clinics · 2025Article
- Concomitant Use of Analgesics and EGFR TKIs in Lung Cancer Patients: Outcomes and Perspectives From a Finnish Retrospective Register-Based Study.Cancer medicine · 2025Article
- The Bidirectional Interplay Between Substances of Abuse and Gut Microbiome Homeostasis.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Peripheral Blood Cytokines as Markers of Longitudinal Change in White Matter Microstructure Following Inpatient Treatment for Opioid Use Disorders.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
25 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Suppression of the immune system has been constantly reported in the last years as a classical side effect of opioid drugs. Most of the studies on the immunological properties of opioids refer to morphine. Although morphine remains the "reference molecule," other semisynthetic and synthetic opioids are frequently used in the clinical practice. The primary objective of this review is to analyze the available literature on the immunomodulating properties of opioid drugs different from morphine in preclinical models and in the human. A search strategy was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane databases using the terms "immunosuppression," "immune system," "opioids," "Natural killer cells," "cytokines," and "lymphocytes." The results achieved concerning the effects of fentanyl, methadone, oxycodone, buprenorphine, remifentanil, tramadol, and tapentadol on immune responses in animal studies, in healthy volunteers and in patients are reported. With some limitations due to the different methods used to measure immune system parameters, the large range of opioid doses and the relatively scarce number of participants in the available studies, we conclude that it is not correct to generalize immunosuppression as a common side effect of all opioid molecules.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.