Clinical analysis of fecal microbiota transplantation for the treatment of radiation intestinal injury

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of fecal microbiota transplantation for radiation intestinal injury. Methods Retrospective analysis of the clinical data of 32 radiation intestinal injury patients including 6 males and 26 females, aged (59.4±9.5) years, with an age range of 51-86 years who underwent fecal microbiota transplantation from August 2017 to August 2018 in the Intestinal Microenvironment Treatment Centre, Tenth People′s Hospital of Tongji University was performed. The efficacy (cure rate, improvement rate), nutritional indicators (body weight, albumin, hemoglobin), inflammation index (C-reactive protein), gastrointestinal quality of life index score and adverse events were compared after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation. The patients were followed up for 1 year by telephone, outpatient and network. The follow-up was carried out in combination with the above-mentioned effectiveness and safety indicators. The time was until August 2019. The measurement data were expressed as mean±standard deviation (Mean±SD), the count data were expressed as percentage. The paired t test was used for comparison between groups. Results The clinical cure rate and clinical improvement rate of patients who received fecal microbiota transplantation for 1 year were 56.3% and 15.6%, respectively. Body weight increased from pre-treatment (53.7 ± 9.6) kg to (60.8 ± 2.1) kg after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation, albumin increased from pre-treatment (30.7±4.6) g/L to (37.5±3.8) g/L after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation, and hemoglobin increased from pre-treatment (108.5±13.1) g/L to (123.3±13.4) g/L after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation. C-reactive protein decreased from pre-treatment (24.1±4.5) mg/L to (3.2±4.5) mg/L after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation. Gastrointestinal quality of life index scores were significantly increased after fecal microbiota transplantation, from (88.4±7.1) scores to (112.2±3.2) scores after 1 year of fecal microbiota transplantation. No serious adverse events occurred during the whole follow-up. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). Conclusions Fecal microbiota transplantation techndogy is effective and safe for radiation intestinal injury patients, which is worthy of clinical research. Key words: Enteral nutrition; Radiation injuries; Inflammation; Intestinal bacteria; Intestinal injury; Fecal microbiota transplantation