Cancer treatment has been evolving in recent decades from surgery, conventional chemotherapy and radiation therapy to targeted therapies and more recently immunotherapies. Despite significant improvement in the efficacy of treatment with the discovery of novel therapies targeting particular cancer-related gene and proteins and more recently the immune system-modulating biologics, still only patients with specific subtypes of cancer benefit from those targeted therapies and there is room for further improvement of survival outcomes. As failure of cancer treatment is not uncommon in clinical practice, a lot of biomarker studies have been carried out with an aim to identify factors contributing to disease relapse and treatment failure. Gut microbiome is one of the research areas which warrants further investigation of its impact on cancer treatment as microbiota has long been proven to profoundly shape mammalian immunity. As there is increasing evidence showing a strong association between gut microbiota and clinical outcomes of immunotherapy, modulation of intestinal micro-ecological system may be a possible strategy to help improve therapeutic impact of immunotherapy in oncology practice.

癌症治疗在最近几十年中已经从外科手术，常规化学疗法和放射疗法发展到靶向疗法和最近的免疫疗法。尽管发现针对特定癌症相关基因和蛋白质的新型疗法以及最近调节免疫系统的生物制剂的治疗效果得到了显着改善，但仍然只有具有特定癌症亚型的患者才能从这些靶向疗法中受益，而且仍有治疗的余地生存结果的进一步改善。由于癌症治疗失败在临床实践中并不罕见，因此已经进行了许多生物标志物研究，旨在鉴定导致疾病复发和治疗失败的因素。肠道微生物组是需要进一步研究其对癌症治疗影响的研究领域之一，因为长期以来一直证明微生物群能够深刻影响哺乳动物的免疫力。随着越来越多的证据表明肠道菌群与免疫治疗的临床结果之间有很强的联系，肠道微生态系统的调节可能是可能有助于改善免疫治疗在肿瘤学实践中的治疗效果的策略。