[Skip to Navigation]
Sign In
Comment & Response
February 20, 2020

Antibiotic Treatment and Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Therapy in Patients With Cancer—Reply

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom
  • 2National Centre for HIV Malignancy, Department of Oncology, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London, United Kingdom
JAMA Oncol. 2020;6(4):587-588. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2019.6868

In Reply We are thankful to Huang et al and Yang et al for the constructive feedback emerging from their letters, which highlighted a crucial question in the interpretation of our findings of whether prior antibiotic (pATB) treatment is truly associated with outcomes from immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy.1 Effective induction of ICI-mediated tumor rejection is the net result of a number of tumor-related and host-related factors. Although causation cannot be inferred from our study, a number of factors suggest that the detrimental association of ATB exposure with outcome from ICI therapy should not be overlooked.

Add or change institution
×