Yonsei Develops 92.9% Sensitive Oral Microbe Test for 2 GI Cancers
Updated
Updated · Inside Precision Medicine · Aug 20
Yonsei Develops 92.9% Sensitive Oral Microbe Test for 2 GI Cancers
3 articles · Updated · Inside Precision Medicine · Aug 20
Summary
Yonsei researchers reported that mouth-to-gut microbial transmission patterns distinguished treatment-naive gastric and colorectal cancer patients from healthy people, pointing to a less-invasive screening and risk-stratification approach.
507 paired oral and fecal samples were analyzed with 16S rRNA sequencing to build a mouth-to-feces index, which tracked identical microbial variants across the same person’s mouth and gut.
The index was 2.6- to 3.0-fold higher in cancer patients than in healthy controls, and it separated gastric from colorectal cancer with signatures that also varied by disease severity.
Oral-sample detection showed 92.9% sensitivity versus 61.0% for fecal occult blood testing, while gastric cancer was linked more to oral microbiota changes and colorectal cancer to fecal microbiota shifts.
The team said prospective clinical studies are still needed before use in practice, and plans to examine how human genetics interacts with microbiota profiles.