Overview

• NYU Langone investigators reported in JAMA Oncology that profiling the oral microbiome was associated with future pancreatic cancer risk.
• Analysis of saliva from 122,000 participants with roughly nine years of follow-up identified 445 pancreatic cancer cases matched to 445 controls.
• Twenty-seven oral microbes were collectively tied to about a 3.5-times higher risk, including periodontal bacteria P. gingivalis, E. nodatum and P. micra.
• The study newly implicated Candida fungi in pancreatic cancer risk and detected these species within patients’ pancreatic tumors.
• The team built an initial risk-estimation tool from bacterial and fungal profiles, while stressing the findings show correlation rather than causation and require replication.