Study Finds Mucus-Eating Gut Bacteria May Cause Fever Following Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatments often take a huge toll on the patient’s body, causing adverse side effects such as blood clots, nausea and vomiting, hair loss, lymphedema and neutropenia. Neutropenia refers to the loss of neutrophils, which are a type of white blood cell. In severe neutropenia cases, patients develop a fever. New research has linked this fever to bacteria in the gut known as Akkermansia muciniphila (A. muciniphila). The study was led by a team of researchers at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. It involved analyzing fecal samples collected from 119 patients who were undergoing stem cell transplantation.…