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High Dose of Opioids Post-surgery Tied to NSCLC Recurrence
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experienced disease recurrence half a decade after surgery received a significantly higher dose of opioids postoperatively, researchers said here.
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who experienced disease recurrence half a decade after surgery received a significantly higher dose of opioids postoperatively, researchers said here.
In a retrospectve study among patients treated for early-stage NSCLC, recurrence occurred in 26 who received a mean dose of 232 mg of opioids in the 96 hours after surgery compared with 124 mg of opioids administered to the 73 patients in whom there was no recurrence in 5 years (P=0.020), reported Dermot Maher, MD,from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and colleagues.
"A suggested mechanism is the opioid-induced inhibition of natural killer cell's ability to scavenge tumor cell emboli during the 'decisive period'," the authors wrote in a poster presentation at the annual scientific meeting of the American Pain Society.
Maher said that in the decisive period right after surgery, natural killer cells find and destroy cancer cells that might have spilled during the perioperative period. Maher said that opioids tend to inhibit the natural killer cell activity.
Read the complete report here: http://bit.ly/1upKsEU
Source: medpage Today
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
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