ArticleBritish journal of cancer2018
Postmenopausal breast cancer and oestrogen associations with the IgA-coated and IgA-noncoated faecal microbiota.
Article in British journal of cancer, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 84 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 143 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global Microbiome: Core and Unique Signatures Across Diverse Populations.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Pooled it
- Breast cancer and microbiome: a systematic review highlighting challenges for clinical translation.BMC women's health · 2025Pooled it
- Gut microbiota and breast cancer: systematic review and meta-analysis.Breast cancer (Tokyo, Japan) · 2025Pooled it
- Guideline for designing microbiome studies in neoplastic diseases.GeroScience · 2024Guideline
- Changes in the fecal microbiota of breast cancer patients based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2024Pooled it
- Human gut, breast, and oral microbiome in breast cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2023Pooled it
- The Human Microbiome in Relation to Cancer Risk: A Systematic Review of Epidemiologic Studies.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2020Pooled it
- Association Between Sex Hormone Levels and Gut Microbiota Composition and Diversity-A Systematic Review.Journal of clinical gastroenterologyPooled it
- Dance and Dietary Intervention Improves Metabolic Health, Fitness, and Quality of Life With Modest Gut Microbiota Shifts in Breast Cancer Patients With Obesity: A Pilot RCT.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Trial
- Association of breast and gut microbiota dysbiosis and the risk of breast cancer: a case-control clinical study.BMC cancer · 2019Trial
- Gut microbiota reshaping the pancreatic cancer immune microenvironment: new avenues for immunotherapy.Molecular cancer · 2025Review
- Interaction between the breast tumor microenvironment and gut microbiome.Gut microbes · 2025Review
- Optimizing breast cancer chemotherapy by harnessing gut microbiota with insights from artificial intelligence.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Review
- Exploring the Microbiome in Breast Cancer: The Role ofMicroorganisms · 2025Review
- The estrobolome: Estrogen-metabolizing pathways of the gut microbiome and their relation to breast cancer.International journal of cancer · 2025Review
- Characterisation of gut microbiota in Malaysian cancer patients using V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA gene sequencing.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Multiple primary malignancies and gut microbiome.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Dysbiosis and extraintestinal cancers.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2025Review
- Gut microbial and functional signatures in breast cancer: an integrated metagenomic and machine learning approach to non-invasive detection.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Effects of gut microbiota in breast cancer.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 9 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe diversity and composition of the gut microbiota may affect breast cancer risk by modulating systemic levels of oestrogens and inflammation. The current investigation tested this hypothesis in postmenopausal women by identifying breast cancer associations with an inflammation marker, oestrogen levels, and faecal microbes that were or were not coated with mucosal immunoglobulin A (IgA).
methodsIn this population-based study, we compared 48 postmenopausal breast cancer cases (75% stage 0-1, 88% oestrogen-receptor positive) to 48 contemporaneous, postmenopausal, normal-mammogram, age-matched controls. Microbiota metrics employed 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing from IgA-coated and -noncoated faecal microbes. High-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS) and radioimmunoassay were used to quantify urine prostaglandin E metabolite (PGE-M), a possible marker of inflammation; urine oestrogens and oestrogen metabolites were quantified by HPLC/MS-MS.
resultsWomen with pre-treatment breast cancer had non-significantly elevated oestrogen levels; controls' (but not cases') oestrogens were directly correlated with their IgA-negative microbiota alpha diversity (P=0.012). Prostaglandin E metabolite levels were not associated with case status, oestrogen levels, or alpha diversity. Adjusted for oestrogens and other variables, cases had significantly reduced alpha diversity and altered composition of both their IgA-positive and IgA-negative faecal microbiota. Cases' faecal microbial IgA-positive imputed Immune System Diseases metabolic pathway genes were increased; also, cases' IgA-positive and IgA-negative imputed Genetic Information Processing pathway genes were decreased (P⩽0.01).
conclusionsCompared to controls, breast cancer cases had significant oestrogen-independent associations with the IgA-positive and IgA-negative gut microbiota. These suggest that the gut microbiota may influence breast cancer risk by altered metabolism, oestrogen recycling, and immune pressure.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.