ReviewCancers2022
Effect of Opioids on Survival in Patients with Cancer.
Review in Cancers, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT07023692 (Visual and Auditory Distraction for the Relief of Pain and Anxiety), which is not on this map. Cited by 22 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.
Visual and Auditory Distraction for the Relief of Pain and Anxiety
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Opioid use and the risk of cancer incidence and mortality: a systematic review.Cancer metastasis reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of opioids on tumour growth and metastasis in animal models: a systematic review.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Mapping opioid exposure through prescription data and postmortem analysis of opioid drugs in multiple tissues.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2026Article
- Is Unconsciousness the Intention? Physicians' Perspectives on Palliative Sedation Outside Specialized Palliative Care: A Qualitative Study.Journal of bioethical inquiry · 2026Article
- A targetable opioid/cancer associated fibroblast axis drives extracellular matrix remodeling and tumor aggressiveness in pancreatic cancer.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evolving Paradigms in Cancer Pain Management: From Opioid-Centric Care to Multimodal and Personalized Strategies.Cancers · 2026Review
- Article
- Open Anterolateral Cordotomy for Cancer Pain: Indication, Efficacy, and Safety: A Systematic Literature Review.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Survival and response outcomes in patients with recurrent/metastatic head and neck cancer treated with opioids and statins: an exploratory pilot study.Translational cancer research · 2026Article
- Utilization Pattern of Acupuncture and Its Associated Predictors for Cancer Pain in South Korea: A Cross-Sectional Study.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Association between opioid use and survival in advanced non small cell lung cancer patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Review
- Return to intended oncological therapy following advanced ovarian cancer surgery: a narrative review.Anaesthesia · 2025Review
- Association of opioid use with survival in patients with cancer treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors: it is time for evidence-based behaviors.The oncologist · 2025Article
- Opioid-Free Anesthesia in Perioperative Care: Findings From a Swedish Web-Based Survey.Pain research & management · 2025Article
- Development of a predictive model for patients with bone metastases referred to palliative radiotherapy: Secondary analysis of a multicenter study (the PRAIS trial).Cancer medicine · 2024Observational
- Perioperative factors associated with survival following surgery for pancreatic cancer - a nationwide analysis of 473 cases from Denmark.BMC surgery · 2024Article
- Prolonged Effect of Repetitive Erector Spinae Plane Block in Reducing Thoracic Pain Caused by Lung Cancer.Cureus · 2024Article
- Improvement of esophageal cancer survival in Northeast Iran: A two-decade journey in a high-risk, low- resource region.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Opioids are commonly used for pain management in patients with cancer. They have a range of unwanted effects, including some that potentially influence cancer growth. This article reviews the data assessing the effects of opioids on survival in patients with cancer. Many studies assessing this show an association between opioids and decreased survival. This effect is present even at very low doses of opioids. These studies do not assess causality, so it is not known if it is a direct effect of opioids on survival. As the control groups are not matched to the opioid group it might be that opioids are being used to control pain and patients receiving opioids have more aggressive cancers and it is the underlying cancer which is causing the decreased survival. Furthermore, although some studies allude to different opioids having different effects on survival, often all opioids are pooled in analysis. Future work needs to try to ascertain causality and differentiate between different opioids, pain, and cancer-mediated effects on survival in specific cancer types. Until then, opioids should continue to be used in patients with cancer as part of measures to optimise comfort and quality of life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.