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Antibiotic use is known to have a near-immediate impact on our gut microbiota and long-term use may leave us drug resistant and vulnerable to infection.
Now there is mounting laboratory evidence that in the increasingly complex, targeted treatment of cancer, judicious use of antibiotics also is needed to ensure these infection fighters don't have the unintended consequence of also hampering cancer treatment, scientists report.
Any negative impact of antibiotics on cancer treatment appears to go back to the gut and to whether the microbiota is needed to help activate the T cells driving treatment response, says Dr. Gang Zhou, immunologist at the Georgia Cancer Center and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.
"It likely depends on what types of therapy physicians are giving to patients and how often they also are giving them antibiotics," says Zhou, corresponding author of the study in the journal Oncotarget.
They have some of the first evidence that in some of the newest therapies, the effect of antibiotics is definitely mixed. Infections are typically the biggest complication of chemotherapy, and antibiotics are commonly prescribed to prevent and treat them.
"We give a lot of medications to prevent infections," says Dr. Locke Bryan, hematologist/oncologist at the Georgia Cancer Center and MCG.
"White blood cell counts can go so low that you have no defense against bacteria, and that overwhelming infection can be lethal," says Bryan, a study co-author.
In this high-stakes arena, where chemotherapy is increasingly packaged with newer immunotherapies, Bryan, Zhou and their colleagues have more evidence that antibiotics' impact on the microbiota can mean that T cells, key players of the immune response, are less effective and some therapies might be too.
(Score: 4, Informative) by RS3 on Monday March 05 2018, @04:45PM (13 children)
As usual, beware the broad-brush / sweeping generalization. Conversely, some studies have shown that antibiotics help with chemotherapy cancer treatments: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2147438-tumour-bacteria-sabotage-chemotherapy-by-destroying-cancer-drugs/ [newscientist.com]
Also, during chemotherapy, immune boosters are often given, such as Neulasta® https://www.neulasta.com/learn-about-neulasta/ [neulasta.com] because the chemo wrecks havoc on the immune system.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Geezer on Monday March 05 2018, @05:32PM (12 children)
Quite so.
I'm in hormone therapy (ADT) for Stage 4 PCa at the moment, and it's working. For now. When it becomes ineffective, and it eventually will, I'll be opting for immunotherapy and avoiding "standard" chemo like the plague.
Meanwhile, avoiding antibiotics and using dietary immune system boosters is in order.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday March 05 2018, @08:00PM (7 children)
I assume you've been on Proscar?
My dad had 2 or 3 cancers, not necessarily interrelated, 6 years ago. For some of the lesions radiation was used, and overall chemo, by an extremely precise and highly-rated oncologist / hematologist. There are many types of "chemo" and not all of them wreck havoc. My dad was not given the harshest ones. He had very little side effect. A few days of weakness, and one or two very slight nauseas. No hair-loss, etc. He is now cancer free. He was also given Neulasta.
If you haven't, please look into HIFU and maybe TTF.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Geezer on Monday March 05 2018, @08:13PM (6 children)
I'm on Lupron and Bicalutamide, actually.
I'm also Stage 4, so I'll never be cancer-free. Too many metastases. My standard of care is palliative, not curative unfortunately.
On the up side, I'm six months past my original prognosis, with a tolerable quality of life and still responding to ADT.
"Living the dream" as my oncologist joked.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday March 05 2018, @10:26PM (5 children)
Please don't be too sure. They said my dad was "stage 4". I'm sure you've heard the phrase "correlation is not causation". (I didn't coin it but I was basically saying it for years.) You can have parallel cancers. We have so many carcinogens in our environment, water, and food. The thing is, some of us are very susceptible to malignancy, some not. Some cancers take 17 years to manifest. A person could be generally very resistant to malignancy, but something weakens the person and tumors grow. Interestingly researchers have observed that certain diseases, especially viruses, can trigger an immune system response that also kills tumors.
Please look into Keytruda. It works well when other treatments are given, such as focused radiation, proton-beam, HIFU, TTF. Please look into those STAT.
I recently had the privilege of talking to a top oncologist at MSK in NYC. Talking about surgical reduction of tumor mass, he said it can be like "poking an anthill". I was thinking "poking a bees nest". Either way it's not always the best first action.
May I inquire what area of the world you're in? Like major metropolitan area you've sought medical help?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Geezer on Monday March 05 2018, @10:36PM (4 children)
I was living in the DC Metro area at the time I was diagnosed and began treatment. The staff at Shenandoah Oncology are first-rate, although by no means a University Hospital research center. My oncologist schooled at Johns Hopkins and my clinician was from Cleveland Clinic.
Keytruda is one of the immunotherapies we may try if/when the ADT conks out.
Thank you for your input. I appreciate it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:36AM (3 children)
Oh good, sounds like you're getting some good care. I'm near- Philly 'burbs. I was unofficially care coordinator for my dad 5-6 years ago, now, more officially, for my mom. Very different case, and med. community is different too. One of many new medical careers is patient care coordinator, "nurse navigator", etc. Long story re: my mom. I'll tell you more in a less pubic forum if you're interested. She's doing much better now- now that I've been allowed to get involved with her case 3 months ago. At that time the Dr.s basically said to put her on hospice. They're not really allowed to tell you that, but they open the doors very wide. Amazing how many options they give you these days, and how much of my ideas they incorporate- medications, vitamins, nutrition, exercise, specific treatments, etc. Yes, I wanted to be, and should have been a Dr...
Please get connected with one of the top cancer centers now. Penn Medicine (Univ. of Penn.) is one of the top in the nation. They have all kinds of special treatments, trials, etc. CTCA, Fox Chase, are great too. And seriously, please go to Memorial Sloan Kettering in NYC, or Scripts in CA, or Mayo, Cleveland. Please ask for HIFU.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Geezer on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:17PM (2 children)
I'm a bit confused about your recommendation for HIFU. Everything I've read about it focuses on effectively treating a primary tumor. That's good news for Stages 1-3. Science marches on.
However, when you're looking at aggressive remote bone and lymphatic node involvement things get...complicated. Old-school oncologists be like, "Here's some morphine. Go to hospice and die."
Thankfully, advances in hormone and immunotherapies are making systemic treatments other than "standard" chemo more effective all the time.
I've pretty much ruled out traditional chemo. Docetaxel and the others are miserable, expensive, and not really effective. If it gets to that point, I have my own plans which need not be elaborated on here. Engineers are an inventive lot by nature, you know.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
I'm 100% with you and I'm truly sorry you're having to go through this. The HIFU thought is that you're fighting many malignancies and neoplasms; any that you can slow or stop by specific treatment allows your body to fight the other ones more easily. HIFU seems like a win-win- no chemicals, minimally invasive, generally does little harm except to the tumor. More on this in a moment...
I'm an EE and used to work for a medical equipment company, besides having good general science / biology savvy. At that company I learned a ton of inside info- often very different from general knowledge (and popular misconceptions). I have a good friend who is an R&D scientist at an acoustic transducer company, and he's been working with top research Dr.s, including Mayo, Johns Hopkins, etc., for many years on HIFU. Perhaps you know this, but he said what they found is that malignancies don't like heat, and the HIFU heats up tissue- I think he said 107F is what they shoot for, but it may depend on many factors. Anyway it generally doesn't hurt good tissue, but the heat is deadly to malignancy. Other than reading the tons of stuff out there, that's what I know of it. My thinking is that it might be good to kill any tumor you can: divide and conquer.
My mom's case is a long many-layered sad story, including months or even years of misdiagnosis and symptom treatment, until a CT found the primary neoplasm last summer. I'll skip the 6 month many-layered very sad story part. Later in that time-frame (Nov.) someone started her on Keytruda, but her primary tumor grew huge- bigger than grapefruit. I got her into low-dose focused radiation treatment, and a CT of 2 weeks ago shows it's essentially gone. (She had very little radiation-side effect; any that might be attributable to radiation could be other factors, such as her terrible diet.) There may be some spread, or parallel lymph node problems, we're not completely sure. Nothing significant. She's been laying in a bed for much of 8 months, and much before that, so the lymph system has had little pumping. My point in this: the oncologist pointed out that there seems to be a 45% increase in efficacy when radiation and Keytruda are coincident. Part of the speculation is that the Keytruda and immune system can better focus on metastatic malignancies.
BTW, I'm sure you know about good old aspirin having a powerful effect on halting the spread of cancer?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Geezer on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:44PM
Aspirin, curcumin, roasted dandelion root tea, as well as pomegranate and resveratrol extracts.
The tea was a happy discovery. Besides being a natural immune system booster, it tastes wonderful and makes for a decent bedtime toddy with honey and Bacardi 151. :)
(Score: 0, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday March 05 2018, @08:19PM (3 children)
... can I have your stuff?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:23AM (2 children)
Dude, if that was a social skills fail and not malice, you should probably say something.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:55PM (1 child)
He didn't specify what stuff. It doesn't have to be the good kind, right?
No but yeah, I feel badly for MDC. Reminds me of the thousands of times I've tried to be funny, but oh boy. Foot in mouth. I'm sure he wishes he could retract that. Right MDC? You want to take that back, right? At this moment you're writing to the SN admins begging for an "accidental" database deletion, right?
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:12PM
I rather doubt it. The pathetic little worm undoubtedly thought he was being clever.