Comparison of vaginal microbiota in gynecologic cancer patients pre- and post-radiation therapy and healthy women.

ABSTRACT:

Background

While the importance of commensal microbes in vaginal health is well appreciated, little is known about the effects of gynecological cancer (GynCa) and radiation therapy (RT) on the vaginal microbiome (VM) of postmenopausal women.

Methods

We studied women with GynCa, pre- (N = 65) and post-RT (N = 25) and a group of healthy controls (N = 67) by sequencing the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene from vaginal swabs and compared the diversity and composition of VMs between the three groups accounting for potential confounding factors in multivariate analysis of variance.

Results

Comparisons of cancer vs healthy groups revealed that Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium have significantly higher relative abundance in the healthy group, while the cancer group was enriche

SUBMITTER: Tsementzi D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7286461 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature