Owens, Casey, et al. “Fecal Microbiota Transplantation and Donor Standardization.” Trends in Microbiology, vol. 21, no. 9, Sept.2013, pp. 443-445., doi:10.1016/j.tim.2013.07.003.
http://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(13)00133-9
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The article goes into detail on the process of fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) and the reason that they are so beneficial to treating certain diseases in the colon. The article specifically goes over Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) which causes diarrhea, bloating, bloody stool, and ulcerative colitis. In the past this was treated with only antibiotics, however, it had a slight chance of reoccurring in patients. Patients who have multiple cases of reoccurring CDI are advised to get an FMT. The article mentions that 81% of reoccurring patients that were treated with one FMT recovered from CDI compared to 31% recovery in patients that were just treated with vancomycin for CDI. The actual procedure for the transplant is very easy usually doctors can do it at the end of a colonoscopy, or they insert a tube through the mouth or nose and transplant it in the small intestines. The part of the procedure that is complicated is obtaining the fecal microbiota.
Feces can either come from a close family member or friend or they can come from an unknown donor. The donor must be screened for any infectious diseases such as hepatitis A and B, HIV, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and syphilis this is to ensure that the patient does not contract anything from the transplant. The FMT is so important to treating people with CDI because it helps to reestablish beneficial and essential microbiota that the antibiotics would have removed. This makes fighting off any residual C. difficile much easier for the patient and is why there are higher rates of recovery than just treating patients with an antibiotic.
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