Oral Bacterial Profile in the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cancer

A new study finds significant associations between antibodies for multiple oral bacteria and the risk of pancreatic cancer, adding support for the emerging idea that the ostensibly distant medical conditions are related.

The study of blood samples from more than 800 European adults, published in the journal Gut, found that high antibody levels for one of the more infectious periodontal bacterium strains of Porphyromonas gingivalis were associated with a two-fold risk for pancreatic cancer. Meanwhile, study subjects with high levels of antibodies for some kinds of harmless “commensal” oral bacteria were associated with a 45-percent lower risk of pancreatic cancer.

“The relative increase in risk from smoking is not much bigger than two,” said Brown University epidemiologist Dominique Michaud, the paper’s corresponding author. “If this is a real effect size of two, then potential impact of this finding is really significant.”

Press release: http://bit.ly/1o6KQ7v

Source: Brown University