Comparison of vaginal microbiota in gynecologic cancer patients pre- and post-radiation therapy and healthy womenOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers compared vaginal microbiota in postmenopausal women with gynecologic cancer (cervical or endometrial), sampled before radiation therapy (N = 65) and after (N = 25), against healthy controls (N = 67).
How was it studied?
Vaginal swabs underwent 16S rRNA gene (V4 region) sequencing, with diversity and composition compared across the three groups using multivariate analysis of variance that accounted for confounders such as age, pH, and BMI.
What did they find?
Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium were significantly more abundant in healthy women, while cancer patients were enriched in 16 phylogroups linked to bacterial vaginosis and inflammation, including Sneathia, Prevotella, Peptoniphilus, Fusobacterium, Anaerococcus, Dialister, Moryella, and Peptostreptococcus. Radiation therapy alone increased alpha-diversity and raised abundance of normally rare species, including several Lachnospiraceae members previously tied to vaginal dysbiosis, affecting 12 bacterial genera. Age and vaginal pH were also identified as significant factors structuring the vaginal microbiome.
Why it matters
This is among the first reports characterizing vaginal microbiome shifts in postmenopausal women with gynecologic cancer, showing that cancer and its treatments are linked to greater enrichment of opportunistic pathogens than radiation alone.