In this longitudinal observational study patients will supply samples of their gut microbiome prior to scheduled colonoscopy or surgery along with dietary intake and blood samples; the relative abundance of microbes from those samples along with dietary data will be used to predict the presence or absence and severity of chemotherapy-induced diarrhea. Microbiome and diet based predictions from blinded samples will be combined to map the diet-microbiome changes during treatment to the changes in immune markers and risk of chemotherapy-induced diarrhea.
The goal of this proposal is to identify how the composition of the gut microbiome and diet interact to impact chemotherapy-induced diarrhea incidence and severity.