REVIEW article
Front. Med.
Sec. Translational Medicine
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Application of Multi-omics Analysis in Translational MedicineView all 14 articles
Lung Cancer and the Gut-microbiota-lung Axis: Emerging Evidence and Potential Clinical Implications
Provisionally accepted
- Affiliated Hospital of Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lanzhou, China
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Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally, with a 5-years survival rate of only around 20%. merging cohort and Mendelian-randomisation studies indicate that gut dysbiosis is associated with—though not yet proven to cause—an elevated risk and worse prognosis of non-small-cell lung cancer. Lower fecal abundance of butyrate producers such as Faecalibacterium prausnitzii and expansion of Enterobacteriaceae correlate with reduced systemic CD8+ T-cell infiltration and shorter progression-free survival during immune-checkpoint blockade. Antibiotic exposure within 30 days before anti-PD-1 initiation is consistently linked to diminished objective response and overall survival in retrospective cohorts, whereas supplementation with butyrogenic probiotics or faecal microbiota transplantation from responders restores therapeutic efficacy in pre-clinical models. This review integrates epidemiological, mechanistic and clinical data to clarify the current evidence, identify gaps and outline the steps needed to translate gut–lung-axis research into safe, effective adjunctive therapies for patients with lung cancer.
Keywords: lung cancer, Gut-microbiota-lung Axis, Gut Microbiota, Immunotherapy, Short-chainfatty acids, gut dysbiosis
Received: 28 Jun 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Yang, Zhang, Li, Shang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lihan Liu, 13893095328@163.com
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