Abstract
Cervical cancer is the fourth most prevalent cancer type among all malignancies, so it is of great significance to find its actual pathogenesis mechanisms. In the present study, 90 women were enrolled, and high-throughput sequencing technology was firstly used to analyze the vaginal microbiota of healthy women (C group), cervical intraepithelial neoplasia patients (CIN group) and cervical cancer patients (CER group). Our results indicates that compared with C group, a higher HPV infection rate as well as increased Neutrophil ratio and tumor marker squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCCA) were obtained, and a decrease in Lymphocyte ratio and Hemoglobin were also present. In addition, the cervical cancer showed a strong association with reduced probiotics Lactobacillus, increased pathogens Prevotella spp., Sneathia spp. and Pseudomonas spp. These results prove that the immunological changes generated by the cervical cancer and the vaginal microbiota can interact with each other. However, further study investigating the key bacteria for cervical cancer is still needed, which can be a clue for the diagnosis or treatment of cervical cancer.
Highlights
Cervical cancer belongs to the most common gynecological malignancies, causing 570,000 new cases and 311,000 deaths worldwide in 2018 (Bray et al, 2018)
Volunteers were divided into C group, CIN group and CER group
Studies on cervical cancer have long been focused on human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, education and smoking (Koh et al, 2019), but Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology | www.frontiersin.org
Summary
Cervical cancer belongs to the most common gynecological malignancies, causing 570,000 new cases and 311,000 deaths worldwide in 2018 (Bray et al, 2018). According to international federation of gynecology and obstetrics (FIGO) 2018 guidelines, surgery and radiation therapy are the main treatments, and chemotherapy is the main adjuvant treatment at present (Bhatla et al, 2018) Complications such as the nerve damage or bladder function damage caused by surgery (Koh et al, 2019), and the destroyed immune system, enteritis and vaginitis caused by radiotherapy (Hosaka and Watari, 2012) are present, which greatly hinder the patients’ compliance during the period of treatment. Prior researches have indicated that vaginal microbes play a critical role in gynecological diseases (e.g. cervical lesions and HPV infections), little work has been done to reveal the potential relationship between vaginal microbiota and cervical cancer. 90 volunteers were enrolled in the present study to explore the differences of vaginal microbiota among healthy women, patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and patients with cervical cancer based on high through-put sequencing method
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