Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT's) - 90% Recovery Rate for Patients w/ C. difficile

Yes, FMT's work for people with c-diff.  There are numerous articles that will tell you so.  90% of the patients get better after FMT treatments, versus something like 30% recovery rate with the old school antibiotic treatment, which is just plain bad for treating something like this.   If the body has any healthy bacteria left, the antibiotics will be sure to kill it all - Not good.  You actually want to do the opposite of kill it and instead, replenish the body with healthy bacteria.  That's exactly what FMT's do and people get well.  

This procedure should be the first method of treatment rather than the antibiotic method. I'm not sure if the US FDA has changed their views on FMT's but with this to consider : "500,000 cases of CDI in the United States annually, with health care costs ranging from $1.3 billion to $3.4 billion." Maybe the costs could be significantly reduced by going with the more effective treatment 1st. Wouldn't that be the more logical and humane thing to do anyway?

  

Fecal transplants restore healthy bacteria and gut functions:

Fecal microbiota transplantation—the process of delivering stool bacteria from a healthy donor to a patient suffering from intestinal infection with the bacterium Clostridium difficile—works by restoring healthy bacteria and functioning to the recipient's gut, according to a study published this week inmBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

Borody-His Innovative Discoveries on Digestive Disease - #FMT & #RHB104

This is another great article.  I knew that Dr. Borody, a doctor and professor out of Australia, developed FMT's (Fecal Matter Transplants) and was 1st to use the transplants to treat c-diff.  Interesting enough he is also considering FMT's for other digestive problems and even neurological conditions.  It will be interesting to see what illnesses are helped with this procedure.  

Here in the US doesn't even have a billing code for FMT's AND the FDA have only permitted transplants for difficult cases of c-diff, patients who do not respond to the antibiotic, that only around 30% of the patients respond to.  FMT's have a 90% recovery rate.  The question again is why not go with the treatment that has a higher success rate rather than lower.  Very sad that the US is so slow to adopt new and smarter treatments that will get people well.   I won't even go there today. It is an issue that probably raises my blood pressure if I think about it too long.  Not even joking.  

Anyway, after reading this article, I found out that Dr Borody also was the innovator for RHB-104 that is currently in the trial stages at this time. If you have Crohn's and don't know what RHB-104, read up on the treatment.  I have some blog posts that will give a good amount of information about the therapy.  It will make you smile and give you a boost of hope for something that may actually be able to eradicate Crohn's all together.  That is exciting!  
Professor Thomas Borody gets it!  He seems to understand the nature of digestive diseases very well.  He is certainly the man who is making some progress with developing real solutions to treat the actual condition and not just remedy the symptoms of a disease.  His name is one to remember and follow as he implements treatments that seem to be successful so far.  
Part of this article gives a little in depth look at his life and how he chose to dedicate his direction to gastrointestinal diseases.   

Note: I have underlined parts of the article that I felt were things to take note of.

He has the stomach for it | JPost | Israel News:

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Prof. Thomas Borody Photo: Courtesy
It’s amazing when in medicine, ideas that had seemed ridiculous – such as a chronic infection instead of an annoying boss causing ulcers – eventually become accepted truisms. Even though stools are considered dirty and something to get rid of, gastroenterologists have discovered that they can transplant feces from healthy donors into patients and very often relieve their chronic bacterial infections, irritable bowel disease (IBD), colitis, constipation and even some neurological conditions.

Prof. Thomas Borody, the founder and current medical director of the Center for Digestive Diseases (CDD) in Sydney, Australia, is a major innovator in these surprising treatments.

The CDD is considered a unique medical institution offering novel approaches in researching, diagnosing and treating gastrointestinal conditions. CDD offers a range of services in the day-procedure unit and houses a research and innovation department for conducting clinical trials in collaboration with universities, pharmaceutical companies and medical societies – all focusing on gastroenterology.

FMT & How This Treatment Will Evolve

Another report on poop that's not that shitty.  The only stuff that smells in this article is the way the AMA and FDA have responded (or lack thereof) to FMT's.  This post is about good ol' FMT's or otherwise known as - Fecal Matter Transplant's, if you're not familiar with the abbreviation. I prefer FMT when talking about this.  
So yeah, this is an article that I found on a local CA online publication. It provided a lot of information, so I decided to do a blog on this.  I read a lot of articles about FMT's, with some that have produced study data and some that do not. There's not much data out there to be found, that's probably why.  All of the articles that I have read however, have been on the positive side in regards to the results with FMT's. This is the first article that I have read to date that reports an extensive {if you want to even go that far as to call it "extensive"} follow-up with patients who had received a FMT.  This information is super important in order to show the effectiveness of the procedure and to give people the confidence to consider such a treatment.  People get grossed, they just do. It's the way our culture handles stuff like this. The point I want to make here is that because of the lack of testing and trials for FMT's, being able to know if this procedure is effective and safe, is to follow-up with patients that have been treated with FMTs. Those patients, in a sense, will provide helpful and needed information that cannot be found in clinical trial data because the data doesn't exist.   This procedure is so new {well,to us Westerners that like to deny and refuse anything "natural"} and not tradition, the patients receiving this treatment are essentially the trial subjects. Seriously, there should be a consent that patients must sign before they receive this treatment that allows the doctors to use their information anonamously, especially follow up data, so it can be published for learning purposes.  To have that information available is crucial.  We are talking about working with US FDA here! As we have seen and continue to see, the FDA doesn't always make the most logical/reasonable decisions in the best interest of the people.  To be able to show data that makes a difference, will make this life saving treatment available to people that would otherwise die. There is no reason why there should be  hundred of thousands of people suffering from c-diff, thousands who end up dying and BILLIONS of dollars spent on ineffective treatments!  That's insanity when there's a treatment that has shown to be 90% effective.  
A patient that suffered from c-diff states the following -  "It's a beast that keeps storming back," he said. "It affects the mind and emotions, too — 90 percent of serotonin is in the gut. You worry quite a lot."  The doctors in this article state that the infection disrupts a person's life.  Doctor Stollman states that FMT's are "the most patient-driven treatment he's encountered in his twenty-plus years of practicing medicine".  It's not surprising that when you have a condition that won't go away, no matter how many rounds of treatment you take, that people end up seeking out the strange and unusual if it means being healthy again.  
The AMA needs to make a billing code !  Doctors need to get paid for treating people AND  doctors need to consider offering FMT's as an option that they know they will get paid for.  After all, the FDA has allowed people with a difficult case of c-diff to get treated with this procedure.  Which means = if you're most likely going to die from c-diff, THEN you can receive the treatment. *smh* Yup, only if you have suffered long, spent a lot and have no more fight in you, will you be able to get an effective treatment.  Does this make any sense whatsoever?  
One last point.  The 4 patients out of the 77 that were followed up with after the FMT who had developed one of the health issues listed (I highlighted the paragraph in purple), in my opinion probably has no relationship to the FMT.  People could have other health issues brewing that just happen to appear after this procedure.  The 4 health conditions are all very different from each other which also leads me to believe that these illnesses weren't brought on by the FMT.  I just feel that as long as the sample donor is screened and cleared for all the diseases that could make a donor  not qualified, then the chances of something negative happening is probably very low.  It's like receiving blood.  The benefit of getting it is high (because if you're getting a blood transfusion, there's a need for it) and the risk is low. Whether it's in a form of transplant or pill, if  it makes people better, this should start to be considered THE most effective treatment rather than the alternative when all else fails.  That's my take on it.