Mouth-to-gut microbial transmission signatures enable robust, non-invasive diagnosis of gastrointestinal cancers.

Mouth-to-gut microbial transmission signatures enable accurate, non-invasive diagnosis of gastrointestinal cancers with over 90% sensitivity across multiple cohorts.

• Why it matters: Gastrointestinal cancers are often diagnosed late, limiting treatment options, and current screening methods lack sensitivity or are invasive. Understanding microbial transmission could improve early detection and risk assessment.
• What they did: Analyzing paired oral and fecal microbiomes from 507 participants, researchers developed a quantitative mouth-to-feces (MF) index and a random forest classifier trained on oral microbiome data to identify cancer signatures.
• The result: The MF-based model outperformed traditional fecal tests, achieving high sensitivity in detecting gastric and colorectal cancers, and offers a scalable, non-invasive approach for early diagnosis and risk stratification.