Changes in intestinal microbiota in female patients with pancreatic cancer

Objective To analyze the characteristics of intestinal microbiota in female pancreatic cancer patients,and find out the potential association between pancreatic cancer and microbiota. Methods Totally 14 female pancreatic cancer patients (PC group),14 male pancreatic cancer patients (PC-m group) and 14 age-and BMI-matched healthy females (HC group) from the first medical center of Chinese PLA General Hospital from April 2017 to March 2018 were enrolled.Their fecal samples were collected for high-throughput sequencing on Illumina NEXT-SEQ 500 platform to compare the relative abundance of microbiota between the three groups. Results No significant difference of α-diversity was found between the female pancreatic cancer patients and the female healthy controls,as well as female and male pancreatic cancer patients.Faecalibacterium prausnitzii decreased significantly in the female pancreatic cancer group compared to the female healthy controls (P<0.001).No significant difference was found between the male and the female pancreatic cancer patients. Conclusion Faecalibacterium prausnitzii decreases in female pancreatic cancer patients.Further research is needed to find out the potential relationship between microbiota and pancreatic cancer.