Antibiotics, Cancer Risk and Oncologic Treatment Efficacy: a Practical Review of the Literature

Overview

Journal Ecancermedicalscience

Specialty Oncology

Date 2020 Nov 4

PMID 33144874

Citations 8

Authors

Moises S Martins Lopes

Larissa M Machado

Pedro A Ismael Amaral Silva

Angel A Tome Uchiyama

Cheng T Yen

Eliza D Ricardo

Taciana S Mutao

Jefferson R Pimenta

Denis S Shimba

Rodrigo M Hanriot

Renata D Peixoto

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Antibiotics have been extensively used to treat infectious diseases over the past century and have largely contributed to increased life expectancy over time. However, antibiotic use can impose profound and protracted changes to the diversity of the microbial ecosystem, affecting the composition of up to 30% of the bacterial species in the gut microbiome. By modifying human microbiota composition, antibiotics alter the action of several oncologic drugs, potentially leading to decreased efficacy and increased toxicities. Whether antibiotics interfere with cancer therapies or even increase the risk of cancer development has been under investigation, and no randomised trials have been conducted so far. The aim of the current review is to describe the possible effects of antibiotic therapies on different oncologic treatments, especially immunotherapies, and to explore the link between previous antibiotics use and the development of cancer.

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