Transplanted Feces Cures Drug-Resistant Gut Infection

slimvictor

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A Dutch research team says transplanting human feces from a healthy person to a sick person can cure a common and severe intestinal infection that antibiotics cannot control.

The human gut is filled with billions of useful and protective bacteria. But those bacteria can be wiped out when people with infections are treated with a long course of antibiotics. That can leave them vulnerable to new and potentially more dangerous infections. Many hospital patients in this condition become infected with a potent bacterium called Clostridium difficile. Symptoms of diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting frequently return after treatment with more medicine.

In the first controlled trial using donor stool to restore the gut's normal balance of bacteria, gastroenterologist Josbert Keller, in The Hague, was able to cure 13 of the 16 study participants infected with C. difficile, with just one infusion of the fecal mixture. Two others were cured with a follow-up treatment. Use of antibiotics alone cured only seven of the 26 infected patients in two comparison groups.

The healthy donor stool, mixed into a saline solution that Keller says resembles chocolate milk, can be introduced to the sick person's intestinal tract through a colonoscopy, through a nasal tube into the lower stomach, or by enema.

Fecal therapy is often used to treat livestock, and there are references to it in ancient Chinese medical texts. Keller calls it "the most powerful probiotic you can imagine."

cont at
http://www.voanews.com/content/transplanted-feces-cures-drugresistant-gut-infection/1585940.html
 
Was the study just recently done? I read about this a while back but am glad to see it finally going forward.
 
You mean spare as in not wipe them out to begin with? I imagine IM would still knock them out.
 
IM is usually a bad idea with ABs. Some of them can cause localized tissue damage, depending on the injection site nerve damage can result, AB treatments normally need to be repeated, and the pharmacokinetic values get all messed up (ie too much dosage in some places, and insufficient dosage in others). IV can definitely spare intestinal bacteria, but most of these ABs would also be fairly ineffective in treating intestinal infections (IV is also a systemic therapy, which can cause other side effects).

The best thing to do is to know which AB kills which types of bacteria when taken orally (or IV in some cases), and when using a broad spectrum AB to automatically have a probiotic therapy afterwards. In most cases this is sufficient to replenish the natural intestinal flora/fauna. C. difficile is not the best competitor when the normal intestinal bacteria are present.
 
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