The bacteria is commonly found in the mouth, and in lab studies led to a 70-99% reduction in viable cancer cells when left in petri dishes for a few days.<\/p>\n
Researchers also analysed 155 patients with head and neck cancer from the Cancer Genome Atlas database and found a 65% reduction in risk of death where fusobacterium was detected.<\/p>\n
The apparent benefit of fusobacterium was a surprise as previous research has linked it to the progression of bowel cancer.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
The study was carried out by experts at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London, in partnership with international researchers.<\/p>\n
They are now studying the exact biological mechanisms behind the findings.<\/p>\n
It’s hoped the bacteria could help formulate new treatments for patients with head and neck cancer, which encompasses cancers of the mouth, nose, sinuses, throat and voice box.<\/p>\n
“In essence, we found that when you find these bacteria within head and neck cancers, they have much better outcomes,” said senior study author Dr Miguel Reis Ferreira, a consultant at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and senior lecturer at King’s College.<\/p>\n
“The other thing that we found is that, in cell cultures, this bacterium is capable of killing cancer.”<\/p>\n
Dr Reis Ferreira added: “This research reveals that these bacteria play a more complex role than previously known in their relationship with cancer – that they essentially melt head and neck cancer cells.<\/p>\n
“However, this finding should be balanced by their known role in making cancers, such as those in the bowel, get worse.”<\/p>\n
The study is detailed in the journal Cancer Communications.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n
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A common type of bacteria has been found to make some cancers “melt”, according to researchers. People who had fusobacterium in their head and neck cancers had “much better outcomes” – with scientists saying they were “brutally surprised” at the findings. The bacteria is commonly found in the mouth, and in lab studies led to <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}