Transcript
Imagine a cancer drug that works, but only for 40% of people. Now imagine that by changing what's in a patient's gut, we could double that number. If that's not a hypothetical, it just happened. Scientists just gave cancer patients pills made from someone else's poop, and it might be one of the most important breakthroughs in cancer treatment this decade. Let me explain. Modern immunotherapy is powerful. It teaches your own immune system to hunt down and kill cancer cells. But for over half of patients, it fails. The immune system just never gets the memo. Now here's the twist. clinical studies just showed that something surprisingly simple might be able to change you. Ugh, I bit my tank. Might be able to change that. Not a new drug, not gene editing, but a fecal microbial transplant. Yeah, that kind. Basically, a poop pill, or many of that. Researchers gave cancer patients a full transplant of gut microbiota from donors, that's like 35 to 40 capsules worth. The whole ecosystem. The goal was not to kill cancer directly, but instead to reshape the environment that the cancer and the immune system operates in. trial, roughly 80% of the patients responded successfully to the immunotherapy after receiving the gut transplant. Normally, that number is closer to 40%. In melanoma, response rates went from around 50% to almost 75%. And in the first ever randomized placebo-controlled trial for kidney cancer, patients who got the FMT survived progression-free for a median of two years. The placebo group, nine months. Same classes of drugs, same cancers, different gut. And here's what surprised even the researchers. The transplants didn't work by adding new good bacteria from the donors. Responders and non-responders received the same amount of the good microbes. What mattered was removal. The responders lost significantly more of certain strains of bacteria that are known to be bad. Species linked to immune resistance. They showed causation in rodent trials where they reintroduced those bacteria to the mice's gut and the treatment and stopped working properly. a garden, it was pulling weeds. It was letting the good out-compete the bad. Now these are still early results with small trials, but bigger trials are already underway. And the idea is profound. Cancer treatment doesn't just happen in tumors, it happens in systems. And sometimes changing the system changes everything.
Additional notes
If you know someone with stage IV melanoma, the new trial is currently enrolling! Full details at NCT06623461. New Poop Pill to help cancer treatment? SUPER COOL: One of the big problems with FMTs is that it's pretty hard to get the right bacteria into your small intestine. These studies used a fairly new method whereby the bacteria is taken from donors, concentrated, and placed into tasteless, odourless, and acid-resistant capsules so that they survive through the stomach (called LND101). In this study, the full dose comprised 36-40 capsules (80-100 g of stool), followed by two half-doses of 20-25 capsules each (50-60 g of stool). That’s a lot of pills! Note: STUDIES: Kidney Cancer Study 1: DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04183-8 Kidney Cancer Study 2: DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04189-2 Lung and Skin Cancer FMT Study for DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04186-5 Note: “response rate” to immunotherapy means the tumor is shrinking by a defined amount, not necessarily going into full remission– although there were a few cases of that as well. #studies #science #cancer #tiktoklearningcampaign
References
- Clinical trial identifier: NCT06623461. Source: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06623461
- Kidney Cancer Study 1. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04183-8. Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-04183-8
- Kidney Cancer Study 2. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04189-2. Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-04189-2
- Lung and Skin Cancer FMT Study. DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-04186-5. Source: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-04186-5