A new study published in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer found that soft tissue sarcoma (STS) patients may have measurable intratumor microbiomes that could play a role in their prognosis and treatment. The study’s authors sequenced DNA in tissue samples collected from patients with non-metastatic STS undergoing neoadjuvant radiotherapy and surgery. The researchers found that more than 99% of the intratumoral DNA in the samples was human, but a small amount of bacterial and viral DNA was present. The proportion of bacterial DNA was consistent across samples, suggesting that the STS tissue was not sterile as previously believed. The study also found a significant positive correlation between the relative viral abundance and the infiltration of natural killer (NK) cells within the tumor tissue, which have been linked to better overall survival and metastasis-free survival. The study suggests that the STS tumor microbiome is measurable and has potential prognostic significance.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jitc-2021-004285