ArticleFrontiers in oncology2022
Solid Tumor Opioid Receptor Expression and Oncologic Outcomes: Analysis of the Cancer Genome Atlas and Genotype Tissue Expression Project.
Article in Frontiers in oncology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- The organ-specific modulation of malignant processes by opioids: a systematic review of cell culture studies.British journal of cancer · 2025Pooled it
- Home-based high-intensity exercise training during neoadjuvant chemotherapy is associated with favorable chemotherapy outcomes and tumor microenvironment remodeling in breast cancer.Cell communication and signaling : CCS · 2026Trial
- Relationship between expression of OGFR, P16, P21 and clinicopathological features of colorectal cancer patients.Journal, genetic engineering & biotechnology · 2026Article
- Low LAMA2 expression may affect drug resistance and prognosis in ovarian cancer via positive LGR5 coexpression.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- The impact of concomitant medications on treatment outcomes in patients with cancer receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2026Review
- Regular use of pharmaceutical opioids and subsequent risk of cancer: a prospective cohort study and Mendelian randomization analysis.EClinicalMedicine · 2025Article
- Design, Synthesis, and Antitumor Evaluation of an Opioid Growth Factor Bioconjugate Targeting Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.Pharmaceutics · 2024Article
- Towards a precision approach to anesthetic/analgesic immunomodulation in cancer.Frontiers in anesthesiology · 2024Article
- Anaesthetic Techniques and Strategies: Do They Influence Oncological Outcomes?Current oncology (Toronto, Ont.) · 2023Review
- Pan-Cancer Analysis and Validation of Opioid-Related Receptors Reveals the Immunotherapeutic Value of Toll-Like Receptor 4.International journal of general medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Opioid receptors are expressed not only by neural cells in the central nervous system, but also by many solid tumor cancer cells. Whether perioperative opioids given for analgesia after tumor resection surgery might inadvertently activate tumor cells, promoting recurrence or metastasis, remains controversial. We analysed large public gene repositories of solid tumors to investigate differences in opioid receptor expression between normal and tumor tissues and their association with long-term oncologic outcomes. Methods: We investigated the normalized gene expression of µ, κ, δ opioid receptors (MOR, KOR, DOR), Opioid Growth Factor (OGFR), and Toll-Like 4 (TLR4) receptors in normal and tumor samples from twelve solid tumor types. We carried out mixed multivariable logistic and Cox regression analysis on whether there was an association between these receptors' gene expression and the tissue where found, i.e., tumor or normal tissue. We also evaluated the association between tumor opioid receptor gene expression and patient disease-free interval (DFI) and overall survival (OS). Results: We retrieved 8,780 tissue samples, 5,852 from tumor and 2,928 from normal tissue, of which 2,252 were from the Genotype Tissue Expression Project (GTEx) and 672 from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) repository. The Odds Ratio (OR) [95%CI] for gene expression of the specific opioid receptors in the examined tumors varied: MOR: 0.74 [0.63-0.87], KOR: 1.27 [1.17-1.37], DOR: 1.66 [1.48-1.87], TLR4: 0.29 [0.26-0.32], OGFR: 2.39 [2.05-2.78]. After controlling all confounding variables, including age and cancer stage, there was no association between tumor opioid receptor expression and long-term oncologic outcomes. Conclusion: Opioid receptor gene expression varies between different solid tumor types. There was no association between tumor opioid receptor expression and recurrence. Understanding the significance of opioid receptor expression on tumor cells remains elusive.
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