Frozen fecal matter could be used to treat a number of medical problems.
The unusual treatment, dubbed Fecal Microbiota Transplant (FMT), could be an effective method of treatment in cases of recurring diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) bacteria, a Massachusetts General Hospital news release reported.
"We found that delivery of a frozen, stored inoculum through a nasogastric tube is safe, acceptable to patients and as successful as delivery by colonoscopy - which requires a preparatory 'clean out,' sedation or anesthesia, and is quite costly," Elizabeth Hohmann, MD, of the MGH Infectious Diseases Division, senior author of the report said in the news release. "Without this treatment option, patients with recurrent C. difficile may have chronic diarrhea - limiting their quality of life and their ability to maintain weight - and need to live on chronic antibiotic treatment, which is both expensive and can have other side effects."
C. difficile infections cause 14,000 annual deaths in the U.S. alone. In the past long-term treatments such as antibiotics have shown only mild success. FMT is believed to be successful because it restores natural microbes to the digestive system. In past studies the method has proven to have a success rate of 90 percent.
Screening potential fecal donors can be expensive, but storing a bank of frozen fecal matter could help remedy this.
Researchers looked at 20 patients who had chronic C. difficile infections that had not responded to antibiotic treatment.
Half of the participants received the donor material through a standard colonoscopy while the other 10 received it via a nasogastric tube (NGT) fed straight into the stomach. The method proved to be successful in curing 14 of the 20 patients.
"It's been very gratifying to be able to help these patients, some of whom have been sick for a year or two," Hohmann said. "They have told us this has been life changing for them and that they have gotten themselves back to normal. There aren't many things in medicine that have a success rate of more than 90 percent. Insurers may not want to pay for this, but it is very effective, makes patients better quite quickly and saves money overall. While it may never become a first-line treatment, we are starting to consider using it more and more often."
