Table 3.

Pro-cancer activity of antibiotics with their mechanisms of action in different therapy methods via intestinal microbiota imbalance*

Therapy methods	Antibiotics	Type of Cancer Cell	Mode of Anticancer Activity	Mechanism of Action	Ref
Surgical treatment	Penicillin	Colon cancer	Abnormal intestinal microbiota count or space position	Immune function damage, the levels of IgA (⭣), IgM (⭣), IgG (⭣)	65
Radiotherapy	Tetracycline	Breast cancer	Disturb intestinal microbiota	The conversion of glucosinolates, isoflavone and glycosides to biologically active agents (⭣)	68, 69
Chemotherapy	Macrolides	Breast cancer	Disorder of intestinal microbiota	Regulate immune inflammatory factors, induce chronic inflammation	72
	Tetracyclines & Macrolides	Breast cancer	Disorder of intestinal microbiota	Mitogen-induced T-lymphocyte proliferation (⭣)	72
	Tetracyclines	Breast cancer	Disorder of intestinal microbiota	Production of PGE2 (⭣)	71, 73
	Tetracyclines	―――	Disorder of intestinal microbiota	Production of matrix metalloproteinase (⭣)	74
Immunotherapy	Quinolones	Liver cancers	Disrupt the intestinal microbiota	Production direct immunotoxicity (⭡), genotoxicity (⭡), cytotoxicity (⭡)	76, 77

*Up-regulated (⭡). Down-regulated (⭣).