MORPHINE, which is given as a painkiller to many people with cancer, might stimulate the growth of tumours, say researchers in the US. Their worrying findings have been questioned by others in the field, but all agree that further studies are urgently needed to settle the issue.
In test-tube experiments and in mice, Kalpna Gupta and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota Medical School found that morphine encourages the growth of blood vessels, known as angiogenesis. The increased blood supply accelerated the growth of breast tumours in mice (Cancer Research, vol 62, p 4491).
Although the researchers have…
