Microbiome impacts bone marrow transplant outcomes

There’s a growing body of research showing that cancer drug efficacy can be interwoven into the composition of the microbiome. Now, a new NEJM study looked at the outcomes of bone marrow transplants, and found that a patient’s microbiota was a powerful predictor of mortality. 

The researchers profiled 8,767 fecal samples taken from 1,362 patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation, and found there were fewer deaths among the patients that had more diverse gut flora. 

Meanwhile, patients with a more homogenous microbiome were more likely to die from graft vs. host disease or other transplantation-related effects. The patients going into the bone marrow transplant with higher intestinal diversity did better overall than those with lower diversity.