Currently, clinical applications of the microbiome are limited and often unconventional, but this is expected to change as research progresses.

Promising prospects for microbiota use include its potential as a biomarker for early disease detection, particularly for colon cancer, and as a predictor of therapy response.

Recent research highlights the microbiome's potential applications in clinical care, emphasizing the need for improved communication between researchers and clinicians.

However, applying microbiome research in clinical settings faces significant challenges, including biological complexities, methodological issues, logistical barriers, and cultural limitations among healthcare professionals.

One major biological challenge is the difficulty in establishing causal relationships between microbiome composition and diseases due to its inherent heterogeneity.

Dr. Antonio Gasbarrini outlines potential uses of the microbiome as biomarkers for early disease detection, predictors of therapy response, and for differential diagnosis of gastrointestinal diseases.

Immediate advances may include a colon cancer screening test that utilizes specific microbiota profiles alongside positive fecal occult blood tests.

To accelerate the use of microbiome research in clinical settings, Professor Giovanni Cammarota suggests standardizing microbiota test reporting and improving clinical trial designs.

Cultural barriers also play a role, as many clinicians remain unfamiliar with microbiome data, which hinders its application in practice.

Additionally, logistical hurdles persist, such as the lack of large-scale multicenter studies and standardized protocols for microbiome analysis.

Despite these challenges, future applications of microbiota in therapy are promising, with potential uses in combating multidrug-resistant bacteria and enhancing immunotherapy effectiveness in cancer treatment.

Experts predict that microbiome-based diagnostic and therapeutic applications will likely be implemented in clinical practice within the next 5-10 years.