Clostridium difficile from a stool sampleWIKIMEDIA, CDCPatients given fecal microbiota transplants (FMTs) to treat recurrent Clostridium difficile infections (RCDI) cleared the bacteria in just days, and their intestinal microbiota were restored nearly to a pre-C. diff state within a year, according to a longitudinal study published in PLOS ONE today (November 26).
The study “adds a puzzle piece to the overall picture of the importance of the stool microbiome in health as well as disease,” David Suskind from Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington School of Medicine, who was not involved in the work, told The Scientist in an e-mail. “This study also confirms the restorative powers of fecal transplant on microbial diversity and its positive effects on clinical outcomes.”
Researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Sinai Hospital in Baltimore used 16S rRNA gene amplicon pyrosequencing to track microbial events associated with RCDI and FMT treatment over time in 14 RCDI patients receiving transplants, as well as their donors, for up to one year post-treatment.
Through this ...
