Case Series Explores : CONNECTION BETWEEN MICROBIOME & COVID-19

Great Reads Physician Outlook June 3, 2022 0 Comments

Case Series Explores : CONNECTION BETWEEN MICROBIOME & COVID-19

Written by: Sabine Hazan, MD

Recently, a Southern California physician and clinical investigator leading several formal clinical trials regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had a case series published in Case Reports in Gastroenterology.¹ An expert in an emerging field of microbiome research, Dr. Sabine Hazan, recently reported on a case series showcasing the potential association of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and the microbiome. While this is not a randomized controlled trial, this case series nonetheless offers more data suggesting the possibility of some association between gut health (the microbiome) and COVID-19.

TrialSite recently chronicled research led by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Center for Gut Microbiota Research, indicating² that the gut microbiome composition could possibly be associated with a person’s risk of developing long COVID months after initial SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Enter ProgenaBiome

Dr. Sabine Hazan runs a medical clinic out of Malibu, California, and a clinical trial site in Ventura, California, known as Ventura Clinical Trials. She also runs Ventura-based ProgenaBiome, a genetic sequencing research laboratory dedicated to continuing important research correlating microbes to diseases.

Recently, Dr. Hazan reported the results of a case series involving a 19-year-old man (the index patient) with Crohn’s disease. Back in May 2020, the young man, his 62-year-old father, and 14-year-old sister all tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Importantly, the trio shared the household with the 50-year-old mother with a history of asthma, as well as a healthy brother and sister-in-law, both of whom are married and reside in the home. All of them remained COVID-19 negative.

Dr. Hazan observed that the index patient and his mother underwent microbiome analysis in May 2019, followed by the brother and sister-in-law in November 2020.

Observations

The physician-microbiome-focused scientist reported that she and the team observed significant differences between the fecal microbiota of the SARS-CoV-2-positive son and those of his healthy family members.

Hazan reports the following differences in the Bacterial phylum, class, order, family, and genus level, with the increased relative abundance of Bacteroidetes and reductions or deletions in bacterial diversity, especially associated with the Bifidobacterium family.

The author notes in the published, peer-reviewed manuscript that the unique investigation could indicate a novel exploratory direction for the prevention or treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infections.