Cancer charity officials have warned that pain treatments should remain unchanged, despite research results suggesting opiate-based painkillers may be involved in encouraging cancer spread.

“These drugs have a long history of providing effective pain relief to many people with cancer,” Cancer Research UK science information officer Dr Laura Bell told C+D.
She added that it was too early to tell whether opiate-based painkillers have an effect on cancer growth. “Much more research would be needed to justify changing the way opiates are used to treat people with cancer,” she added.

A spokesman for the British Pain Association agreed. “The benefits of providing morphine to relieve the severe pain of cancer far outweighed the possible risk,” he said.

The comments follow US research that found opiate-based painkillers such as morphine could encourage cancer cells to grow and spread.

The researchers showed morphine receptors found in non-small cell lung cancer could be implicated in the production of both insulin-like growth factor and endothelial growth factor, both of which are implicated in cancer proliferation.