Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Mar 22;17(1):11.
doi: 10.1186/s13027-022-00425-3.

Chlamydia pneumoniae infections and development of lung cancer: systematic review

Nadeesha Madushani Premachandra  1 , J A A Sampath Jayaweera  2
Affiliations
Review

Chlamydia pneumoniae infections and development of lung cancer: systematic review

Nadeesha Madushani Premachandra et al. Infect Agent Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: Chlamydia pneumoniae is an obligate intracellular pathogen and is a common cause of human respiratory diseases, including pneumonia. It has been already known to have a causal relationship with some chronic diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. In this review, we aim to find out the association between C. pneumoniae infection and lung cancer.

Methods: This is a systematic review on C. pneumoniae infection and the development of lung cancer, based on published articles consolidated from PubMed and Google Scholar on the topic.

Results: Out of 46 articles, 27 were selected and screened through the process. Twenty-four articles positively supported the hypothesis with one animal model, while 3 of them were negatively supportive. Several proposed mechanisms explain the pathogenesis with some knowledge gaps.

Conclusion: Although some studies showed an association between C. pneumoniae infection and lung cancer, whether the C. pneumoniae infection is an individual risk factor for lung cancer is still debatable. And it needs further experimental studies on both humans and animals with large observational studies to better understand the association between C. pneumoniae infection and lung cancer.

Keywords: Chlamydia pneumoniae; Lung cancer; Risk factor; Serology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Literature review
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kuo CC, Jackson LA, Campbell LA, Grayston JT. Chlamydia pneumoniae (TWAR) Clinical Microbiology Reviews. American Society for Microbiology; 1995 [cited 2021 Jun 21]. p. 451–61. https://journals.asm.org/journal/cmr - PMC - PubMed
    1. E. P. Is Chlamydophila pneumoniae an etiological agent of non-infectious diseases? Vol. 44, Postepy Mikrobiologii. 2005.
    1. Chlamydia pneumoniae Infection and Inflammatory Diseases [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jun 21]. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6345537/
    1. Porritt RA, Crother TR. Chlamydia pneumoniae infection and inflammatory diseases [Internet]. Vol. 7, Forum on Immunopathological Diseases and Therapeutics. Begell House Inc.; 2016 [cited 2021 Jun 21]. p. 237–54. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shen M, Cai L, Jiang K, Xu W, Chen Y, Xu Z. The therapeutic role of inhibition of miR-328 on pulmonary carcinoma induced by chlamydia pneumoniae through targeting histone H2AX. Cancer Biomarkers. 2019; - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources