Streptococcus Anginosus Can Cause Gastric Cancer CUHK Study Finds

The Faculty of Medicine (CU Medicine) of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) announced on March 13 its latest research findings that a bacterium called Streptococcus anginosus (S. anginosus) can be a pathogen that promotes gastric tumor formation. The research results have been published in Cell, the top international journal in biology. The research team plans to study, in its next phase, how to inhibit S. anginosus to reduce the risk of gastritis and gastric cancer.

According to CU Medicine of CUHK, gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the world and the sixth most common cancer in Hong Kong. Although Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is known to be a major risk factor for gastric cancer, only 1 percent to 3 percent of those infected will eventually develop it. So, whether any other microorganisms apart from H. pylori could be involved, there is still not a definite answer from the medical community.

It was from this perspective that the CUHK research team started exploring the likelihood of other factors. They first looked at the non-H. pylori microbiome in patients at different stages of gastric tumorigenesis, from superficial gastritis, atrophic gastritis, and intestinal metaplasia to cancer, and discovered that five oral pathogens, which included S. anginosus were enriched in the patients’ gastric mucosa. S. anginosus exists mainly in the oral cavity, nasopharynx, gastrointestinal tract, as well as the vaginal tract, and can enter all sterile parts of the body and cause invasive infections.

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