Raseen Tariq, MBBS: FMT for Refractory Host Versus Graft Disease

As treatment for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infections (CDI) moves toward live microbiota therapeutics, there might be a new potential use for fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in treating patients with Graft versus Host disease (GVHD).

In data presented during 2022 Digestive Disease Week Annual Meeting in San Diego, investigators from the Mayo Clinic found FMT has promising efficacy in managing GVHD.

In an interview with HCPLive®, Raseen Tariq, MBBS, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Mayo Clinic libraries, Mayo Clinic, explained the promising initial results and how FMT needs to studied further in the future.

“GVHD is pretty difficult to treat,” Tariq said. “It has been postulated that it is due to dysposis of the microbiome, especially secondary to antibiotics that these patients get.”

The purpose of the study was to see if it was even possible to use FMT in this select patient population. While prior studies have shown some efficacy, those studies were generally limited by small sample sizes.

In the updated meta-analysis, the investigators found about 56% of a total of 73 patients had a complete response and 14 patients had a partial response, for a total efficacy of 73%. There was also no adverse events found in this patient population.