Laryngeal Cancer Microbiome Study Reveals Parvimonas and Campylobacter as Potential Therapy Targets

OBJECTIVE: Laryngeal cancer accounts for 40% of head and neck malignancies and 1% of all cancer-related deaths worldwide. We evaluated the laryngeal cancer microbiome to identify cancer-specific genera as potential treatment targets. METHODS: A prospective study was conducted using 57 laryngeal mucosal samples from 24 treatment-naive laryngeal cancer patients and 33 patients who were undergoing otolaryngological surgery unrelated to oral or laryngeal diseases (01/2023-09/2025). DNA was extracted and amplified in triplicate, targeting the V3/V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene, followed by paired-end 2 × 300 bp sequencing on the Illumina NextSeq 2000. Amplicon sequence variants were identified via DADA2 and assigned to genera using a naive Bayes classifier. Two samples with zero classified read pairs were excluded. RESULTS: Most patients were male (87.5% cancer, 66.7% controls) and smokers (83.3% cancer, 54.5% controls). Cancer patients' core laryngeal microbiomes uniquely contained Parvimonas (3.67%; 95% CI: 0.70%-6.64%), and Campylobacter (1.12%; 95% CI: 0.60%-1.63%), while control patients' uniquely contained Corynebacterium (2.97%; 95% CI: 0.00%-7.67%) and Alloprevotella (1.34%; 95% CI: 0.64%-2.04%). Cancer samples were significantly enriched in 19 genera, notably Peptococcus (2.93, q = 0.0003), Campylobacter (1.68, q = 0.009), and Parvimonas (2.02, q = 0.03), compared to controls. CONCLUSIONS: Laryngeal cancer patients' samples displayed microbial dysbiosis, with enrichment of microbes present in gastrointestinal cancers, cervical cancer, and inflammatory states; they also exhibited loss of immunoprotective taxa. These findings support that microbiome profiling can distinguish malignant mucosa and guide future studies targeting genera increased in cancer, including Parvimonas and Campylobacter.