Gut Microbes May Help in Cancer Treatment

By Ramadhani Chambuso

Since the gut is the largest immunological organ in the body, research has found that certain anticancer drugs work better with prior or concomitant modulation of specific gut microbiome to optimize maximum therapeutic outcome in the treatment of skin and lung cancer in mice. However, this strong interrelationship between the immune system and the host gut microbiota which can determine responses to cancer therapies has not yet been demonstrated in humans, although efforts are made to have ethical clearance to conduct further clinical trials.

Source links: Vétizou et al. (2015) and  Reardon (2017)