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Faecal implants – a beacon of hope for melanoma patients

A subject I have reported on in an earlier blog article is faecal transplants. The journal Nature reports on a fascinating case concerning malignant melanoma.

In 2019 doctors at the Sheba Medical Center in Israel collected stool samples from a patient who had widespread malignant melanoma. It had spread to many organs and his prognosis was poor.

He was treated with a new immune therapy and remarkably his disease disappeared. This does occur but is a very rare occurrence when the disease is so widespread.

Doctors then took some of his faeces and gave them to 26 patients with widespread melanoma who had previously failed to respond to immunotherapy. They were then treated once more with an immunotherapeutic drug and of the 26 a third then responded to the treatment.

The effect is modest BUT without the faecal transplant, zero would have responded. It seems the bacteria from the successfully treated patient was able to re-energise the immune systems of some of the other patients. It’s a real beacon of hope.

We are just beginning to understand the importance of our microbiome; the bugs that live in our guts and the team now need to dig deep into the ‘poo’ and work out what exactly is causing this effect.