conference abstract
Papers open inside SciRah from the original publisher or repository; SciRah never hosts them.
6036 Background: Diversity of the gut microbiome is associated with response rates for patients receiving immunotherapy. Studies investigating the gut microbiome and outcomes in cancer patients often do not adjust for confounding patient and tumor characteristics. We sought to identify independent gut microbial risk factors in cervical cancer (CC) patients receiving chemoradiation (CRT) and to evaluate their impact on survival. Methods: We analyzed baseline 16S rDNA fecal microbiomes of CC patients receiving standard CRT. Patient and tumor characteristics were analyzed by univariate and multivariate Cox regression models for Recurrence-free survival (RFS) and Overall survival (OS) based on univariate p-value>0.2. Characteristics included age, body mass index (BMI), race, stage, grade, histology, nodal status, and max tumor size. Alpha (within sample) diversity was evaluated using Shannon diversity index (SDI). Kaplan-Meier curves were generated for patients with normal BMI and overweight/obese BMI based on Cox analysis. Results: 55 CC patients were included. Univariate analysis identified older age (Hazard Ratio (HR) of 0.93 (95% CI = 0.87-0.98, p = 0.0096)), SDI (HR of 0.51 (95% CI = 0.23-1.1, p = 0.087)) and BMI (HR of 0.92 (95% CI = 0.84-1, p = 0.096)) as risk factors for RFS. Multivariate survival analyses identified BMI and SDI as independent prognostic factors for RFS with a HR of 0.87 (95% CI = 0.77-0.98, p = 0.02) and 0.36 (95% CI = 0.15-0.84, p = 0.018) respectively. For OS, multivariate survival analyses again identified BMI and SDI as independent prognostic factors with a HR of 0.78 (95% CI = 0.623-0.97, p = 0.025) and 0.19 (95% CI = 0.043-0.83, p = 0.028) respectively. Conclusions: Gut diversity is a significant factor for predicting OS in CC patients undergoing CRT when BMI is accounted for, and may help explain the “obesity paradox” in cancer response. Studies exploring the relationship between gut diversity, CRT, and treatment efficacy are needed to further understand the role of the gut microbiome in treatment outcomes. [Table: see text]