Scientists from the University of East Anglia found a link between bacteria and aggressive forms of prostate cancer.
They found five types of bacteria that were common in urine and tissue samples from men with aggressive prostate cancer.
The research is published in European Urology Oncology and was conducted by Prof Colin Cooper et al.
While prostate cancer is responsible for a large proportion of all male cancer deaths, it is more commonly a disease men die with rather than from.
And little is known about what causes some prostate cancers to become more aggressive than others.
In the study, the team analyzed urine or tissue samples from more than 600 patients with or without prostate cancer. And they developed methods of finding the bacteria associated with aggressive prostate cancer.
They found several types of bacteria associated with aggressive prostate cancer, some of which are new types of bacteria never found before.
The set of bacteria found by the team includes Anaerococcus, Peptoniphilus, Porphyromonas, Fenollaria and Fusobacterium. All of these are anaerobic, which means they like to grow without oxygen present.
When any of these specific anaerobic bacteria were detected in the patient’s samples, it was linked to the presence of higher grades of prostate cancer and more rapid progression to aggressive disease.
The team also identified potential biological mechanisms of how these bacteria may be linked to cancer.
They hope that these findings and future work could lead to new treatment options, that could slow or prevent aggressive prostate cancer from developing.
The work could also lay the foundations for new tests that use bacteria to predict the most effective treatment for each man’s cancer.
The team also noted that many bacteria are beneficial to human life and it is not a simple matter to remove the harmful bacteria without removing the protection provided by the good bacteria.
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If you care about prostate cancer, please read studies about vitamin that is particularly important for your cancer prevention, and results showing these two hormones may affect prostate cancer risk.
For more information about prostate cancer, please see recent studies about new method that could help predict prostate cancer growth, and findings of new prostate cancer therapy that could delay cancer growth.
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