Israel: Research is under way around the world to understand infectious diseases such as cancer, and now, for the first time, a systematic survey has been conducted to find bacteria, fungi and other microbes in cancerous tumors.
Named the tumor microbiome in English, it has been studied for bacteria in many types of cancerous tumors. Although many bacteria or their traces have been found, it is not yet known whether they have a role in cancer. However, some bacteria have previously been found in pancreatic and intestinal cancers, but they have never been found in cancers of the bones, brain and uterus.
Ray Wind Strauss-Kahn, of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, conducted a lengthy study of 1,000 tumors in the bones, brain, uterus, breast, skin, lungs, and pancreas. The samples were obtained from nine research centers in four countries.
Experts said the results showed that 60 percent of bone, breast, pancreatic and other cancers were found to contain bacterial DNA, while only 14 types of skin cancer were found to have bacteria or its components.
A total of 528 species of bacteria have been found in various tumors. Only one tumor showed different types at a time, but breast cancer had the highest number of different types of bacteria.
According to Raywind, bacteria can also be caused by environmental factors. For example, tobacco-borne bacteria were noticed in the lungs of smokers, or there were bacteria that were there to break down tobacco chemicals. But no one can say for sure why bacteria and microbes are present in cancer boils and whether they play a role in their growth