Australian researchers enrolled 81 ulcerative colitis patients across three study sites, of which 41 received FMT treatment and 40 received placebo. The study’s dual goals were:
• Participants reporting their symptoms went away
• Researchers determining, through endoscopic examination, that patients’ digestive tracts improved, both without the use of steroids
Here are four takeaways:
1. After eight weeks, more than three times as many FMT patients responded to treatment than those in the control group.
2. Eleven of the 41 FMT patients achieved the study’s dual goals.
3. Only three of the 40 placebo patients reached the study’s goal.
4. When researchers looked at only the number of patients reporting being symptom-free, they found 44 percent of FMT patients reported improvement versus 20 percent in the placebo group.
“Previous research in this area has been limited to small case series and two single center trials with conflicting outcomes. Our study is the first multi-centered trial that uses an intense therapy of FMT infusions, 40 over eight weeks, and has been able to show definitively that fecal microbiota transplantation is an effective treatment for ulcerative colitis,” said Sudarshan Paramsothy, MD, lead study author and a gastroenterologist from the University of New South Wales, Australia.
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