A new study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, compared the clinical efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation via capsule and colonoscopy in treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection.
Canadian researchers conducted a clinical trial at three academic centers in Alberta, Canada. The trial included 116 adult patients with recurrent C. diff, enrolled between October 2014 and September 2016, with follow-up through December 2016.
Of the 116 patients, 105 completed the trial with 57 patients assigned to the capsule group and 59 to the colonoscopy group.
The study shows that prevention of recurrent C. diff was achieved in 96.2 percent of patients in both the capsule group and the colonoscopy group. One patient in each group died of underlying cardiopulmonary illness unrelated to FMT.
Additionally, researchers found that rates of minor adverse events were 5.4 percent for the capsule group as compared to 12.5 percent for the colonoscopy group. Around 66 percent of patients in the capsule group rated their experience as "not at all unpleasant" versus 44 percent in the colonoscopy group.
"Among adults with RCDI, FMT via oral capsules was not inferior to delivery by colonoscopy for preventing recurrent infection over 12 weeks," study authors concluded.