YH Fang, J Chen, JD Yu, YY Luo, JG Lou

Abstract

Background: Faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a potential therapeutic method to treat intestinal diseases with faecal dysbiosis. FMT has demonstrated effectiveness for recurrent Clostridium difficile infection (CDI), meanwhile it also showed potential therapeutic effect for some inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. Methods: There were five patients, from 1Y6M to 11 years old. Two patients were diagnosed very early onset Crohn's disease (CD), two patients were ulcerative colitis (UC) and one patient was pseudomembranous colitis. They underwent FMT therapy by nasal jejunal tube or colonoscopy, and were followed up every two to four weeks after FMT. Results: One UC patient and the pseudomembranous colitis patient achieved partial remission after FMT. However, both of the patients' symptoms relapsed six to eight weeks after FMT. Two CD patients and one UC patient did not respond to FMT therapy. All of the IBD patients had moderate to severe disease active index before FMT. For adverse effects: four of the patients had fever after FMT. Other adverse events included abdominal pain, abdominal uncomfortable,they were mild and self-limiting. Conclusions: FMT had limited effect for very early onset CD and UC patients in our preliminary clinical experience. The incidence of adverse effects of FMT was much higher than reported.