Clostridium difficile sporesWIKIMEDIA, CJC2NDA handful of patients suffering from recurrent Clostridium difficile infections (CDI) experienced a cessation of the violent diarrhea that is a hallmark of the disease after ingesting frozen, encapsulated feces from healthy, unrelated volunteers. The results of the preliminary study to test the efficacy of the new twist on fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) were published today (October 11) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
“If reproduced in future studies . . . these results may help make FMT accessible to a wider population of patients, in addition to potentially making the procedure safer,” the authors of the JAMA paper wrote. “The use of capsules obviates the need for invasive procedures for administration, further increasing the safety of FMT . . . and significantly reducing cost.”
CDIs are downright nasty to the human gut. They cause extreme diarrhea, abdominal pain, and, if left unchecked, death. The infections kill about 14,000 people in the U.S. alone every year. Such an insidious malady is apt to drive patients to drastic treatment measures. Direct fecal transplants, which transfer gut microbiota from healthy donors, have shown great promise in treating CDI’s, and last year ...
