Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionised cancer treatment, but can cause serious heart damage in some patients. 

New research shows that cancer patients treated with these drugs have a decline in protective immune cells. Patients with lower levels of an immune biomarker before treatment experienced the greatest decline in protective immune cells, which are associated with heart damage and a life-threatening complication called myocarditis. 

The biomarker could help doctors to identify which patients are most at risk of myocarditis and other serious heart complications of immune checkpoint inhibitors in future.   

New research findings shows that specific bacteria in patients’ gut microbiome correlate with biomarkers that suggest they are at greater risk of heart damage during chemotherapy.  

98 women over the age of 60 diagnosed with breast cancer were tested for biomarkers that indicate heart health and their gut bacteria genome was sequenced before chemotherapy. 

This study is part of a wider project called CARDIOCARE which will allow the research to expand to a larger study of 600 women to confirm the finding. This work offers the hope that tailored probiotics could be used to help protect women from the heart side-effects of chemotherapy in future. 

· Cases of bowel cancer are on the rise, and the chemotherapy drugs used to treat most patients haven’t changed in almost 50 years. These drugs eventually stop working for many patients.

· Until now, scientists haven’t understood how resistance to chemotherapy develops.

· New machine learning technology can determine how resistance has developed, which will accelerate the design of new drugs to keep patients well for longer