Every year, cancer kills millions of people around the world, with approximately 9.8 million deaths recorded in 2019 alone.
Lung cancer and breast cancer are the most common types of cancer, with lung cancer and colon cancer causing the highest number of deaths the world over.
In 2016, there as many as 16 million cancer patients survived the disease in the United States, while the number of cancer survivors is expected to surge to 21 million by 2026.
Radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments of cancer; around 50% of people undergo the therapy at some point during their treatment. Health experts typically administer radiation therapy along with chemotherapy.
Some investigators have revealed that during treatment of certain cancers, providing radiation therapy in higher amounts but less often tremendously helps increase the immune system.
Also, this way of managing radiation therapy sparks an immunological chain reaction that concludes in the destruction of aloof, nonirradiated tumors as well as localized ones.
The researchers of the new study also suggest that merging radiation therapy with immunotherapy has triggered a great deal of medical interest lately.
In addition, earlier studies have proposed that gut bacteria arbitrate the immune response. Therefore, the researchers of the new study examined whether or not changing the gut bacteria using an antibiotic can moderate the anticancer impacts of radiation therapy.
Antibiotic enhances effects of radiation therapy
In the research, vancomycin was chosen as the antibiotic to upset rats’ gut bacteria because it activates gram-positive bacteria, and because its act is restricted to the gut. This means that it does not impact the rest of the body’s microbiome.
The scientists managed the antibiotic orally to rats that had been inherently adapted to develop lung cancer, melanoma, or cervical cancer.
These experiments discovered that the antibiotic boosted the anti-cancerous impacts of radiation therapy. It helped the treatment put an end to not only the cancer cells that it beleaguered directly, but also the distant cancer cells that were farther away in the body.
This happened by improving the function of dendritic cells, which serve as the protectors of the immune system, telling T cells that an antigen is present and asking them to attack it.
One of the researchers of the study says that antibiotics play a role and can possibly affect treatments and results for cancer patients.
The experts also suggest that more research is needed to fully comprehend the role of specific bacterial strains in moderating the body’s immune response.