The Sarcoma microbiome as a therapeutic target

The Sarcoma microbiome as a therapeutic target

Researchers from Ohio Medical School have found the presence of large numbers of pathogens in all types of Sarcoma, while UC Davis researchers have found viruses that disrupt the immune attack; both are suggesting the tumour microbiome as a therapeutic targetA Short Review.

 

What is a Sarcoma?

A Sarcoma is a tumour of the connective tissue - it can appear almost anywhere in the body. There are two general forms:

  • Soft tissue sarcoma which maybe in muscles, tendons or nerves

  • Osteosarcoma which is associated with the bones.

 

Soft tissue sarcoma

 

The Mayo Clinic states that there are more than 70 different types of Sarcoma, e.g Leiomyosarcoma (which begins in the (leio-) smooth, (myo-) muscle tissue, Liposarcoma (which originates in fat cells in any part of the body), and Angiosarcoma (which originates in and around the blood and lymph vessels). 

 

Leiomyosarcoma tends to bev aggressive. Sometimes it can double in size in just a month. Treatments such as surgery, radiotherapy and proton beam therapy seem to be much more beneficial than drugs.

 

Typically, about 90 per cent of sarcomas are p53 mutated (deficient). We have a p53 protocol on this website. Other off-label drugs such as Mebendazole and Fenbendazole do seem capable of attacking osteosarcoma according to research.

 

Soft tissue sarcoma occurs more in women than in men.

 

As each is found only in a small number of people, Sarcoma is termed a rare cancer and treatment depends on the actual type of sarcoma. Conventional treatment is not very successful. Even immunotherapy has shown poor results.

 

The other issue with sarcoma is that they can appear to be beaten yet come back 20 or 30 years later.

 

Osteosarcoma

 

This is the most common form of primary bone cancer and is particularly found in teens and young adults.

 

Sarcoma and pathogens - Ohio University research

 

Looking for possible therapeutic approaches other than conventional therapies which often have poor results, researchers from Ohio State Medical Center and University analysed the microbiomes of several different sarcoma tumours. Using the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Genome Tissue Expression (GTEx) databases, they  produced RNA sequencing data  for each sarcoma subtype (1).

The researchers found a statistical correlation between the Sarcoma subtype, the microbiome make up and overall survival. Microbobes, technically, are living beings found all around us. They cannot be seen by the naked eye. Most microbes are harmless, but some can make us ill (pathogens).

The researchers found 1304 microbes in total, and 431 were linked statistically to overall survival. 

In this research, 'microbes' were essentially bad news (pathogens) and having ‘no microbes’ was linked to an improved survival.

Overall - 18 microbes were found in all sarcoma types. These included Bacillus sp., Streptococcus lutetiensis, Clostridium tetani, and Pseudomonas. Each was negatively correlated with survival 

Liposarcoma (de-eifferentiated) - 50 microbes were only associated with this subtype.

Leiomyosarcoma - 54 microbes were only found in this type of sarcoma, for example, Candida dubliniensis, Mycobacterium avium and Streptococcus.  

Sarcoma and viruses - UC Davis research

A 2023 study from UC Davis has shown that in the sarcoma tumour microbiome, there is a strong negative influence of viruses which seem to decrease the activity of Natural Killer Cells (2) and affect prognosis and lower survival. They seem to prevent the immune system attacking the cancer.

Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist, author of Heal your Gut and a founder of CANCERactive said, “We have the Tabs Headington Interview on the CANCERactive Community. She was one of my patients. She had a sarcoma in her groin and had to give up after round three of a gruelling chemo regime. But we completely rebuilt her microbiome, killing off pathogens and viruses - we always do for cancer patients. Perhaps this was why she completely beat her soft tissue sarcoma. It certainly seems a potential way forward to me.

Go to: How Tabs Headington beat her Sarcoma

 

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References

 

  1. The sarcoma microbiome as a diagnostic and therapeutic target. Meeting Abstract | 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting; Gabriel Tinoco, Marium Husain, Rebecca Hoyd, Malvenderjit Jagjit Singh, YunZhou Liu, Xiaokui Mo. Journal of Clinical Oncology Vol 39, Issue 15; 

  2. Human soft tissue sarcomas harbor an intratumoral viral microbiome which is linked with natural killer cel

    2023 Jan 4;11(1)

 

 


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