Gut microbes can shape responses to cancer immunotherapy

[D.ap]

Cancer immunotherapies unleash the body’s immune system to fight cancer, but microbes living in a patient’s gut can affect the outcome of those treatments, two research teams have found.

Their studies, published on 2 November in Science1, 2, are the latest in a wave of results linking two of the hottest fields in biomedical research: cancer immunotherapy and the role of the body's resident microbes, referred to collectively as the microbiome, in disease.

They also highlight the impact of antibiotics on cancer immunotherapies, particularly drugs that block either of two related proteins called PD-1 and PD-L1. One of the studies found that people treated with antibiotics for unrelated infections had a reduced response to these immunotherapies.

https://www.nature.com/news/gut-microbe ... py-1.22938

[D.ap]

Mayo Clinic has a distinguished history of investigating neural autoimmune disorders. An important aspect of this work concerns the occurrence of autonomic disease in an immune setting and the discovery that immunotherapy can be beneficial for patients with autonomic disease.

Although autonomic disease is typically associated with syncope, neuropathy and sweating problems, chrjonic gastrointestinal (GI) dysmotility also may be a component. Autoimmune GI dysmotility (AGID) is a newly described clinical entity that is a limited manifestation of autoimmune dysautonomia, and can occur as an idiopathic phenomenon. Signs and symptoms include early satiety, nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, constipation and involuntary weight loss. The onset may be subacute, and neurological manifestations may or may not be an accompaniment.S

https://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-prof ... -direction

[D.ap]

"The concept that you can have predominantly GI dysmotility — without necessarily having a lot of symptoms in other areas — and the conclusion that it is due to an immune mechanism affecting the nervous system of the gut is rather novel," says Sean J. Pittock, M.D., a consultant in the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and founder of the autoimmune neurology clinic there. "But if the immune system can cause inflammation of the optic nerve, spinal cord or cerebral cortex, then why can't it cause a problem with the gut? After all, the gut contains 100 million neurons — more than the spinal cord or the peripheral nervous system."

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So with all the above articles , this brings us full circle .
Patients are being denied places on immune therapy clinical trials and or are having to discontinue the trials , because of autoimmune issues . Side effects .
My hope is that we are able to figure a simple way,through probiotics and or transplants , to overcome these debilitating autoimmune side effects for cancer patients to-

A) best benefit the immunotherapy and be successful .
B) stay on the immune therapies and avoid autoimmune issues .


https://immunosym.org/daily-news/immuno ... ne-disease