Fecal Microbiota Transplantation for Ulcerative Colitis: FoMenTing Change?

Excerpt

Fecal microbiota transplant (FMT), the process of introducing fecal bacteria from a healthy donor into a diseased patient, has gained increasing attention since it was established as an effective treatment for patients suffering from infection with Clostridium difficile (CD), the pathogenic bacterium responsible for pseudomembranous colitis and for some antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Due to the mounting failure experienced with eliminating this bacterium with conventional therapies, alternative treatments have been used, of which the most promising is FMT [1]. The concept of using feces to treat gastrointestinal diseases was first documented in China in the fourth century and in the USA in 1958 [2, 3]. In 2013, a randomized controlled trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine concluded that FMT is significantly more effective for the treatment of recurrent CD infection (CDI) than the use of antibiotics [4]. …