Yesterday in microbiology we were had lectures on "strategies of laboratory diagnosis" and "antibiotics and resistance." During these lectures, our professor mentioned a procedure known as a fecal transplant. It is used for Clostridium difficile (see picture above), which is a bacteria that causes diarrhea. C. diff can be found in the normal flora (normal bacteria) of the gut, but if you are immunosuppressed (cancer patients for example) it can overgrow and run amuck. I suspect that the fecal transplant is used in other bacteria. I am not 100% sure all of the bacteria that are treated with this procedure because when I searched for academic papers, most of them discussing "fecal transplant" were so recently published that I couldn't see the full article online--just the abstracts. I did find news report published by the Canadian Broadcast Cooperation that discusses this medical procedure.
At any rate, on "Grey's Anatomy" last night, they discussed a patient who needed and received a fecal transplant. I am here to tell you that yes, in fact, this procedure is done. From what I know, this is reserved for patients who have had severe diarrhea for a long period of time (so perhaps the case wasn't severe enough to warrant a transplant). Nonetheless, it works when other things don't. I spoke with my professor (a PhD in microbiology) today about the actual procedure and she thought that it was done as an enema, but the next presenter (an MD) said that it would be administered via an NG tube (a tube in the nose, often used to feed patients who cannot eat). Yup, that is correct. Grey's got it right. Fecal transplants do, in medical practice, actually occur.
Something else interesting to look up about C-diff. I really wish I could remember where I read it but apparently, the FDA has been sampling meat and found that 1 in 5 packages had C-diff. I really need to find the actual article again so I can see if it's right.
ReplyDeleteGreat subject matter! Glad I dosed off during that scene!!!!Love you
ReplyDeleteHi Mom, Yes it is an interesting and great subject matter! Despite being rather gross, it is making a huge difference in people's lives. I guess when worse comes to worse, people will really try anything.!!
ReplyDeleteLove you and see you in less than a month!
Yes, Brenda. There was just an article on MSNBC regarding C. diff and meat. Here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27774614/. I skimmed the article, so I can't speak to exactly what was said, but C. diff is a common bacteria of the natural flora in the gut of animals, so if, for example, ground meat is made using the intestinal track (and it isn't completely clean), you can transmit C. diff in the meat. One way to avoid C. diff (or other bacteria) is to buy a meat grinder and grind your own cuts of meat. People generally don't get ill from eating steak, it is the ground meat that does it. There were articles on pubmed.org discussing this topic, but nothing recently published is avaiable for public viewing on pubmed.
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