University of Virginia School of Medicine
why a fecal transplant can benefit patients with dangerous recurrent C. difficile infections
New research from the School of Medicine sheds light on why a fecal transplant can benefit patients with dangerous recurrent C. difficile infections – and suggests a way to improve patient outcomes.
C. difficile infection causes life-threatening diarrhea, and it often takes hold in patients in hospitals and nursing homes as a result of long-term antibiotic use. Doctors have known that fecal transplants – literally transplanting fecal material from a healthy person into the sick – can improve C. difficile outcomes, but they haven’t fully understood why. The new UVA research offers important answers.
“Even though we know that fecal microbiota transplants can treat recurrent C. difficile infection, we don’t know exactly why some microbe combinations work better than others or why the same combinations can have different effects on different people. We believe that this variability stems from each person’s immune system being unique. That is why it is important for us to find out what immune markers change in patients where fecal microbiota transplantation was successful in preventing C. difficile re-infections,” said researcher Ning-Jiun “Ninj” Jan, PhD, of UVA’s Division of Infectious Disease and International Health. “Finding that a specific immune signaling molecule, IL-25, was increased in successful fecal microbiota transplantations indicated that maybe IL-25 can be used as an adjunctive therapy for treating C. difficile infection.”
C. difficile infection causes life-threatening diarrhea, and it often takes hold in patients in hospitals and nursing homes as a result of long-term antibiotic use. Doctors have known that fecal transplants – literally transplanting fecal material from a healthy person into the sick – can improve C. difficile outcomes, but they haven’t fully understood why. The new UVA research offers important answers.
“Even though we know that fecal microbiota transplants can treat recurrent C. difficile infection, we don’t know exactly why some microbe combinations work better than others or why the same combinations can have different effects on different people. We believe that this variability stems from each person’s immune system being unique. That is why it is important for us to find out what immune markers change in patients where fecal microbiota transplantation was successful in preventing C. difficile re-infections,” said researcher Ning-Jiun “Ninj” Jan, PhD, of UVA’s Division of Infectious Disease and International Health. “Finding that a specific immune signaling molecule, IL-25, was increased in successful fecal microbiota transplantations indicated that maybe IL-25 can be used as an adjunctive therapy for treating C. difficile infection.”