News Releases & Research Results Elucidation of intestinal environment changes due to gastrectomy - Overcoming complications after gastrectomy

The results of the collaborative research led by Associate Professor Takuji Yamada of the Department of Life Science and Technology, School of Life Science and Technology Tokyo Institute of Technology, Professor Shinichi Yachida of the Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Appointed Professor Shinji Fukuda of the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University, and Director Yutaka Saito of the Endoscopy Division, National Cancer Center Hospital, and others.

• Changes in the intestinal florae, their functions, and metabolites characteristic of patients after gastrectomy, as compared with healthy individuals, were revealed by metagenome and metabolome analyses with stool samples.
• Specifically, clinical data were collected from 106 subjects who underwent colonoscopy (50 patients after gastrectomy + 56 healthy individuals) by questionnaire surveys, frozen stool inspection, and colonoscopy. Bacteria and metabolites characteristic of patients after gastrectomy were explored by metagenome and metabolome analyses with frozen stool samples.
• The analyses demonstrated the “abundance” and “diversity” of intestinal bacterial species in patients after gastrectomy compared with healthy individuals, and also relatively larger amounts of colon cancer-related bacteria and metabolites in patients after gastrectomy, especially total gastrectomy.
• The method for evaluating the intestinal environment with stool samples should be applied as a future non-invasive method for analyzing causes of complications, such as malnutrition and anemia, after gastrectomy.

This research project was conducted with the support of Practical Research Project for Rare/Intractable Diseases and Project for Cancer Research and Therapeutic Evolution (P-CREATE) by AMED.

The results of research were published in the British academic journal Gut on January 17.

Pande Putu Erawijantari, et al. Influence of gastrectomy for gastric cancer treatment on faecal microbiome and metabolome profiles Gut
DOI：10.1136/gutjnl-2019-319188