Belgian Fecal Microbiota Transplantation Registry

Description

Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is a medical procedure in which the feces from a healthy donor are prepared and delivered to a recipient, in the hope of restoring his microbial intestinal flora and confer a health benefit. Indeed, rapidly accumulating evidence indicates that modifying the gut microbiota may mitigate some diseases and promote health. Recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is the first disease for which FMT was proven both more effective and cost-effective than other therapies, and is now an internationally recognized and accepted treatment. In Belgium and abroad, researchers are currently investigating the potential benefits of FMT for conditions beyond CDI, such as inflammatory bowel diseases, neuropsychiatric diseases, metabolic syndrome and more. The adoption of FMT in clinical practice is expanding rapidly, even outpacing scientific knowledge, leading to a lack of understanding of its potential complications. Surveillance of FMT safety and efficacy is lacking, while unsafe “do-it-yourself FMT” also increases. A major concern is pathogen transmission and recent associations between dysbiosis and other health conditions (e.g. obesity) further enhance the need for short and long term information on the potential risks associated with stool transplants. Finally, there is today very little information about practice of FMT in Belgium. The set-up of a “FMT national registry” is therefore highly needed and recommended by various national and international organisations in order to gather data on safety and effectiveness of FMT. In Belgium, the opportunity to link this registry with the already existing Clostridioides difficile (CDIF) surveillance is of great benefit, as data related to patient and infection characteristics are already collected. The suggested duration of follow-up would be of minimum 10 years, both for donors and recipients, as it is currently done in USA and the Netherlands. The physician would follow up the patient four times over the two years following FMT and would report back clinical outcomes on patient’s health. After this two year period, reporting would be provided directly by the patients at least annually up to 10 years after FMT. Donors would also be screened up to 10 years after the last donation. Post-FMT surveillance can be performed by outpatient visits, telephone interviews, or standardized questionnaires. The follow up should include a) Clinical outcome in recipients of FMT; b) Early (within 30 days) and late adverse events of FMT recipients; c) Development of diseases in donors that could have an impact on the FMT recipient.

Resources

Name Format Description Link

Tags

  • hdbp0216
  • f06257a0-4cdf-5201-9604-4ce645b4f555

Topics

  • HEAL

Categories