Frozen pills could make faecal transplants safer and easier

Faecal transplants just got easier to swallow. The procedure, in which bacteria from a healthy gut are implanted into an unhealthy one, has attracted a lot of attention during the past year. But the treatment generally requires a colonoscopy - a procedure that's uncomfortable and expensive.

In a study published on Saturday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers report that the same success rate can be reached by processing the healthy excrement into capsules and administering the pills by mouth.

As it stands, faecal transplants are no walk in the park. But for those infected with the bacteria Clostridium difficile, the procedure can be a lifesaver. The infection causes 250,000 hospitalisations and 14,000 deaths in the United States each year, and up to 30 per cent of patients don't respond to antibiotics. The chronically infected can suffer from debilitating digestive issues.

Doctors have had great success with faecal microbiota transplantation, or FMT. A healthy donor provides a stool sample, which is introduced to the patient by way of a colonoscopy or a tube snaking down from the nose to the stomach. The faecal matter carries the bacterial colonies that help maintain the donor's healthy gut. The transplanted bacteria can often fight off Clostridium difficile within days.

In a previous study by the same group, frozen donor samples were found to be as effective as fresh - meaning that donors can be recruited and collected from at any time, instead of when a donation is needed.

Led by Elizabeth Hohmann of the Massachusetts General Hospital infectious diseases division, the new study aimed to make the treatment as simple and inexpensive as possible.