Andreas Munk Petersen, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, 2650 Copenhagen, Denmark. andreas.munk.petersen@regionh.dk
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Systematic Reviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2017; 23(22): 4112-4120 Published online Jun 14, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i22.4112
Can fecal microbiota transplantation cure irritable bowel syndrome?
Sofie Ingdam Halkjær, Anders Watt Boolsen, Stig Günther, Alice Højer Christensen, Andreas Munk Petersen
Sofie Ingdam Halkjær, Andreas Munk Petersen, Department of Gastroenterology, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, 2650 Copenhagen, Denmark
Sofie Ingdam Halkjær, Stig Günther, Alice Højer Christensen, Department of Gastroenterology, Aleris-Hamlet Hospitals Copenhagen, 2100 Søborg, Denmark
Anders Watt Boolsen, Andreas Munk Petersen, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, 2650 Copenhagen, Denmark
Andreas Munk Petersen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 2650 Hvidovre, Denmark
Author contributions: Boolsen AW and Petersen AM designed the research project; Halkjær SI, Boolsen AW and Petersen AM performed the research; Halkjær SI, Boolsen AW, Günther S and Christensen AH wrote the paper; Petersen AM supervised the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Andreas Munk Petersen, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology, Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, 2650 Copenhagen, Denmark. andreas.munk.petersen@regionh.dk
Telephone: +45-38-625960 Fax: + 45-38-623777
Received: January 27, 2017 Peer-review started: February 6, 2017 First decision: March 16, 2017 Revised: March 24, 2017 Accepted: June 1, 2017 Article in press: June 1, 2017 Published online: June 14, 2017
Abstract
AIM
To verify the utility of treatment with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
METHODS
We searched EMBASE, Cochrane Library and PubMed in March, 2017. The reviewed literature was based on two systematic searches in each of the databases. The MeSH terms used were IBS and fecal microbiota transplantation and the abbreviations IBS and FMT. Reference lists from the articles were reviewed to identify additional pertinent articles.
RESULTS
A total of six conference abstracts, one case report, one letter to the editor, and one clinical review were included. In the final analysis, treatment of 48 patients was evaluated. Treatment revealed an improvement in 58% of cases. The varying structure of the nine included studies must be taken into consideration.
CONCLUSION
Data on FMT and IBS are too limited to draw sufficient conclusions. Standardized double blinded randomized clinical trials need to be carried out to evaluate the effect of FMT on IBS.
Core tip: In humans, the gastrointestinal tract represents a large microbial ecosystem, housing several trillion microbial cells named the gut microbiota. Recent advances in sequencing methods have increased our understanding of the role of the gut microbiota in health and disease. Worldwide, interest is growing rapidly for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) as an “ecological” therapy for several diseases. Evidence suggests that a disturbance in the gut microbiota may be responsible for the initiation and persistence of symptoms in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. FMT could, therefore, be an ideal treatment option.
