Emergent or elective surgical procedures may be complicated by sepsis, resulting in critical
illness that can lead to organ failure and death. The opioid drug, morphine is widely used to
alleviate pain in post-surgical patients; however, it is well documented that chronic treatment
of mice with morphine affects the proliferation, differentiation and function of immune cells.
Thus, morphine might be expected to exacerbate the effects of sepsis, which also
compromises the immune system. To test this notion, we investigated the effect on several …