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Clinical trials targeting the gut-microbiome to effect ocular health: a systematic review

Eye volume 37, pages 2877–2885 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Clinical trials targeting the gut microbiome to mitigate ocular disease are now on the horizon. A review of clinical data thus far is essential to determine future directions in this novel promising field. This review examines recent clinical trials that support the plausibility of a gut-eye axis, and may form the basis of novel clinical interventions. PubMed was queried for English language clinical studies examining the relationships between gut microbiota and ocular pathology. 25 studies were extracted from 828 candidate publications, which suggest that gut imbalance is associated with ocular pathology. Of these, only four interventional studies exist which suggest probiotic supplementation or fecal microbiota transplant can reduce symptoms of chalazion or uveitis. The gut-eye axis appears to hold clinical relevance, but current data is limited in sample size and design. Further investigation via longitudinal clinical trials may be warranted.

摘要

靶向调节肠道微生物从而减轻眼部疾病的临床试验目前即将拉开帷幕。对迄今为止的临床数据进行回顾, 在确定这一具有前途的新领域的未来发展方向上至关重要。本文综述了最新的支持肠-眼轴的合理性临床试验, 这些临床实验的结果可能成为新的临床干预策略的基础。本文使用PubMed查询了关于肠道菌群与眼部疾病相关性的英文临床研究。从828篇候选文献中筛选了25篇研究, 这些研究表明肠道失衡与眼部疾病的病理相关。其中, 只有4项介入性研究表明, 补充益生菌或移植粪便微生物群可以减轻霰粒肿或葡萄膜炎的症状。肠-眼轴体现了临床相关性, 但目前的数据在样本量和设计方面均具有局限性。需要通过纵向临床试验进行进一步的验证。

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Fig. 1: PRISMA diagram of study review and selection process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ophthalmic Bioinformatics, Cole Eye Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Matthew W. Russell, Justin C. Muste, Blanche L. Kuo, Anna K. Wu & Rishi P. Singh

  2. Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Matthew W. Russell

  3. Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Blanche L. Kuo & Anna K. Wu

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MWR, JCM, and RPS were involved in project conception and designing study. MWR, BLK, and AKW were involved in data collection and table generation. All authors were involved in manuscript writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Rishi P. Singh.

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RPS reports personal fees from Genentech/Roche, personal fees from Alcon/Novartis, grants from Apellis and Graybug, personal fees from Zeiss, personal fees from Bausch + Lomb, personal fees from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All other authors report no disclosures.

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Russell, M.W., Muste, J.C., Kuo, B.L. et al. Clinical trials targeting the gut-microbiome to effect ocular health: a systematic review. Eye 37, 2877–2885 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-023-02462-7

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