Abstract
e16070 Background: Intestinal dysbiosis has been hypothesized as a possible etiology of the increasing incidence of early-onset colon cancer (EO-CC). Here, we compare the microbiome signature in nonmetastatic, microsatellite stable (MSS) EO-CC to average-onset colon cancer (AO-CC). Methods: Specimens from patients with resected stage I-III MSS colon cancer from 2014-2019 were sequenced by MSK-IMPACT, a large panel next generation sequencing (NGS) assay. A validated technique using non-human read sequences from NGS analysis was used to identify the microbial species in tumor tissue. The tumor microbial alpha diversity and differentially abundant microbiome were compared between patients younger than 40 years (EO-CC) with those older than 60 years (AO-CC). Results: Of 275 patients with MSS, 24 (mean 33.6, range 24-39) and 114 patients (mean 70, range 61-90) had EO-CC and AO-CC, respectively. There was no significant difference in clinicopathological features including gender, tumor stage and neoadjuvant treatment between the two groups. EO-CC was more likely to present with left sided disease compared to AO-CC (81% vs. 45%, p = 0.001). There was no significant difference in the tumor microbial diversity (alpha diversity) between the EO-CC and AO-CC (pShannon= 0.95). Although there was a relative abundance of microbial species from bacterial phylum such as Actinobacteria, Deinococcus-Thermus, α-proteobacteria, γ-proteobacteria and δ-proteobacteria in EO-CC compared to AO-CC, this difference was not significant after controlling for multiple comparisons (Table). Conclusions: Our analysis did not reveal a significant difference between EO-CC and AO-CC in both the abundance and diversity of tumor microbial species, suggesting intestinal dysbiosis may not be a major driver in early onset colorectal cancer pathogenesis. However, additional studies with a larger sample size are warranted for further analysis and subgroup comparison. [Table: see text]
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