Bacteria causing gangrene are promising as cancer treatment

The researchers found that gangrene-causing bacteria could also be used to treat patients with certain cancers.

Image credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Texas, revealed that the bacteria causing gangrene can be used at high doses safely in patients with dementia. advanced cancer that does not respond to other treatments.

This type of treatment is called bacterial therapy and it has been shown that the treatment shrinks and kills the cancer cells.

These bacteria release spores that can be injected into tumors, causing necrosis and death of tumor cells.

The team used spores of deadly bacteria Clostridium difficile which can be resistant to antibiotics and can cause serious harm to humans.

The researchers used a modified and less aggressive form of the bacterium called Clostridium novyi-NT.

This bacterium is special in many ways. First, it needs little oxygen to survive (called anaerobic). This means that it can not develop in healthy tissues where oxygenation is adequate via the blood supply.

Fast-growing tumors lacking fresh blood supply are therefore ideal for the growth of these bacterial spores.

By exploiting the inherent differences between healthy and cancerous tissues, Clostridium novyi-NT represents a very precise anticancer treatment capable of specifically attacking the cancer of the patient. "

Dr. Filip Janku, Anderson Cancer Center

The phase 1 trial included 24 patients who had been diagnosed with solid tumors and who had become resistant to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

These patients all received one injection of 10,000 to three million bacterial spores. The safe dose of spores was one million spores.

Patients receiving the highest dose (2 patients) developed severe sepsis and gas gangrene. At the dose of 1 million spores, the patients were stable and manageable.

In these 22 patients, tumor growth was adequately stopped and in 23% of patients tumors decreased by more than 10% from their initial size.

Dr. Janku explained that when bacterial spores are injected, there may be initial inflammation that can cause tumor cells to swell when the immune system begins to attack the tumor-invading bacterial cells.

As the progress progresses, the inflammation will lessen and the tumor may shrink more than the initial records.

He added that bacterial spores half the time (46% of cases) had sprouted to grow and multiply.

These bacteria attacked the tumor cells and caused them to die and reduce their size.

The other benefit of these spores is that they have caused the immune system to attack the spores.

As the immune cells piled up in and around the tumors, they killed the tumor cells.

According to these preliminary results, it appears that Clostridium novyi-NT is able to activate the immune response in addition to causing the destruction of the tumor.

We were extremely encouraged by the results of this trial, especially in patients with advanced sarcomas, where immunotherapy has not been proven effective.

This bacteriolytic strategy could be clinically significant, particularly in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, for patients with advanced solid tumors. "

Dr. Filip Janku, Anderson Cancer Center

The researchers hope that this bacterial therapy can be used with other cancer therapies such as immunotherapy using the help of modulating immune system drugs to kill cancer cells.

The team will present the results of its study this week at the Fourth International Conference on Cancer Immunotherapy organized by CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR: Translating Science into Survival (Sept. 30).^e until October 3) in New York. This study was sponsored by BioMed Valley Discoveries Inc.