A deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying the success of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is needed to further improve its effectiveness, according to two recent reviews published in Cell Host and Microbe.
Both research teams agree that more needs to be known about how various underexplored factors ― such as the patient's diet and genetic background, how closely the donor's microbial composition matches the patient's existing microbiome, and the presence of nonbacterial gut inhabitants like viruses and fungi ― affect FMT success, according to a press release.
FMT is most often used to treat recurrent Clostridioides difficile infections, which don't always respond to antibiotics. Success rates range from 60% to 90%, depending on the administration route and study design, notes an international research team led by Abbas Yadegar, PhD, a medical bacteriologist at the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, Iran.
Dr Abbas Yadegar
The understanding of how FMT works is incomplete, however, and the reasons some patients fail to benefit is unclear, note Yadegar and colleagues. Little attention has been paid to the role that other components of the patient's microbiome, along with outside factors, play in the treatment's success, they add.
"We wanted other researchers to look beyond changes in stool microbial composition and function, which have been the focus of research in the past few years," Yadegar's team said in a statement provided to
