Health Home >>  >>   

Use human feces to cure C. difficile: Study

Written by: QMI Agency
Oct. 22, 2012

C. difficile. (Wikimedia Commons/CDC/HO)

Human poop provides a very effective, if unconventional, treatment for a potentially deadly infection, according to a new U.S. study.

Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), which causes diarrhea, fever, nausea and stomach pain, is one of the most common infections in hospitals, in part because antibiotics used in many treatments kill off the "good bacteria" in the bowel and allow the bug to flourish. While most people experience mild symptoms and recover, it's estimated that C. difficile is responsible for hundreds of deaths each year in Canada.

A therapy in which stool donated from a healthy family member is mixed with warm tap water and pumped back into the patient's intestinal tract proved to be a safe and "highly effective" cure, said lead researcher Dr. Mayur Ramesh of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit.

The study was small, but found 43 of 49 patients recovered very quickly after receiving IMT (intestinal microbiota transplantation), and showed no complications from C. difficile in a followup three months later.

The therapy helps re-establish the "good" bacteria in the patient's gastrointestinal tract, which helps in the digestion and absorption of food and stimulates the immune system, Ramesh said.

IMT is performed through either colonoscopy or a nasogastric tube. Patients don't smell or taste the stool mixture, Ramesh said.

"This treatment is a viable option for patients who are not responding to conventional treatment and who want to avoid surgery," Ramesh said.

Of the 49 patients in the study, four died of causes unrelated to C. difficile, one had intestinal surgery and one had no improvement.

The study was presented Friday at the annual meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

 

View more news