New study into impact of gut health on blood cancer outcomes

Melbourne patients with the blood cancer multiple myeloma are taking part in a world-first study to determine if a healthy gut can help them better fight the disease.

Around 40 patients undergoing autologous stem cell therapy for myeloma at Melbourne’s Epworth Freemasons Hospital are participating in the research, which will monitor their gut microbiome during and after this treatment by taking stool samples.

The study is being conducted by leading investigators from the Epworth Centre for Immunotherapies and Snowdome Laboratories; Associate Professor Costas Yannakou, Dr Nicole Brooks, Dr Sam Fiorenza, Dr Brian Grainger, Olivia Hoeper, Isabella O’Keefe and Charmaine Tan, in collaboration with Australian microbiome testing company, Microba.

GURNER™ Snowdome Immunotherapy Fellow, Dr Grainger, said that the gut has over one trillion bacteria - known as the microbiome - which are known to have diverse impacts on cancer outcomes.

Autologous stem cell transplants involve giving high-dose chemotherapy to eradicate the myeloma cells in the bone marrow and then "transplanting" back the patient's healthy bone marrow stem cells that have been held in the freezer to repopulate their bone marrow. This treatment can markedly decrease the risk of relapse and death from the myeloma, but not for all patients. 

One contributor to the variation in outcomes between patients is disruption in their gut microbiome as a result of the chemotherapy and other treatments, known as dysbiosis. Unfortunately, this leads to symptoms such as diarrhoea and means significantly lengthened hospital stays and potential long-term complications.

Currently available diagnostic tests can only identify the cause of the gut microbiome disruption in a small number of cases, which makes treatment difficult.

“In this world-first study, we will look at the gut microbiome over time to determine if its composition may influence treatment success and disease outcomes,” Dr Grainger explained.