Fentanyl Abuse Impairs Cardiac Cell Function And Contributes To Heart Rhythm Defects

In caller years, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, has been a main contributor to nan opioid crisis. One of nan worst adverse effects of fentanyl maltreatment is opioid-induced cardiac arrest. Although it is good known that opioid maltreatment tin induce arrhythmias; nan effects of fentanyl maltreatment connected bosom rhythms person not yet been thoroughly investigated.

In a caller study published successful Circulation, first-author Gema Mondéjar-Parreño, PhD and elder writer Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD, head of Stanford Cardiovascular Institute, recovered that quality induced pluripotent stem cells supply an unparalleled opportunity to study patient-specific consequence to opioid abuse. The investigators studied nan consequences of fentanyl abuse, specifically those relating to nan electrical activity of nan bosom that find really nan bosom controls its hit and pumping. The scientists analyzed 19 toxicology studies betwixt 1994 and 2022 successful which nan mean estimate of fentanyl attraction was 3 times higher than patients pinch chronic pain. Using nan data, nan investigators exposed quality induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CMs) to doses of fentanyl that mimicked circumstances of overdose. They recovered that this caused changes successful calcium signaling homeostasis successful bosom musculus cells and slowed down mentation for nan adjacent heartbeat that contributed to beating irregularities. Additionally, since arrhythmias are often much evident erstwhile nan bosom complaint increases, nan researchers recovered nan operation of fentanyl and isoproterenol, a stimulant utilized to summation bosom rate, tin worsen fentanyl-induced arrhythmias.

This study offers groundbreaking grounds that fentanyl maltreatment tin impair nan usability of cardiac cells, starring to hit defects. Together pinch respiratory depression, fentanyl-induced effects connected electrophysiology importantly lend to cardiac arrest. Further studies will thief america amended understand fentanyl maltreatment and its narration to arrhythmias.

Additional authors see Shane Rui Zhao, Xu Cao, Yu Liu, Johnson Y. Yang, James Jahng, David Wu, and Nazish Sayed from nan Stanford Cardiovascular Institute; José Jalife from Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), Madrid, Spain; and Jeremy Leitz from Greenstone Biosciences.

This task was supported by Leducq Foundation Grant 18CVD05, Gootter-Jensen Foundation, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 HL130020, R01 HL145676, R01 HL146690, R01 HL163680, and R01 HL176822 (JCW); R01 HL158641 and R01 HL161002 (NS); R01 HL163943 and PI20/01220 Instituto de Salud Carlos III (JJ); and American Heart Association Postdoctoral Award #872244 (GMP).