Gut bacteria diversity linked to immunotherapy response in melanoma patients
Patients with malignant melanoma have been found more likely to respond to immunotherapy treatment if they have a greater diversity of gut bacteria.
Patients with malignant melanoma have been found more likely to respond to immunotherapy treatment if they have a greater diversity of gut bacteria.
Scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre studied more than 200 mouth and 100 gut microbiome samples from people with advanced melanoma. Significant differences were found in the type of bacteria found in the gut of subjects that responded to treatment compared to those that did not.Dr Jennifer Wargo, lead researcher at the University of Texas, said: “Not all patients respond to immunotherapy drugs and it’s hard to know who will benefit from the treatment prior to it being given. The gut microbiome can be changed through a number of different strategies, so there is real potential here to modify the gut microbiome to boost an immunotherapy response.”
There was no difference observed in the type of mouth bacteria between patients. Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the UK with more than 14,500 people being diagnosed and 2,300 deaths every year.
Antibiotics, probiotics or even faecal transplant before immunotherapy are believed to be able to increase the benefits already achieved with new immunotherapy drugs. However, many are yet to be tested in clinical trials.
Dr Pippa Corrie, chair of the National Cancer Research Institute’s (NCRI) Skin Cancer Clinical Studies Group, said: “Gut microbes have been shown to influence the role of conventional chemotherapy, so it’s probably not surprising that they impact on response to new immunotherapies being used in the clinic. Manipulating the gut flora may be a new strategy to enhance activity of immunotherapy drugs, as well as to manage problematic toxicity in the future.”
This information was presented at the NCRI Cancer Conference in Liverpool.
- The composition of gut microbiome has been linked to the efficacy of a vaccine
- The microbiome trains the immune system in the first year of a baby’s life
- A 2014 review suggests the overuse of antibiotics and changes in diets may result in less resilient and diverse functions required to have balanced immune responses
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