NCT03827772 - Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) & Alcoholic hepatitis

Background:

Severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH), when it manifests as acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), is associated with a high risk of short-term mortality. A significant factor in its development is the alteration of gut microbiota, which has been identified as a key element in the disease's pathogenesis. Modulating this gut microbiota has been proposed as a potential therapeutic approach (1).

Study overview:

It is an open-label non-randomized treatment trial evaluating the impact of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) or standard care treatment on short-term survival and improvement in scores of MELD, MELDNa, and mDF in 33 patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis (1)

Primary outcome measures:

Survival

Results:

Survival at 28 and 90 days was better in the FMT group. It was 100% versus 60% at 28 days (p = 0.01). At 90 days, it was 53.84% versus 25% (p = 0.02) (1)

Conclusion:

Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) is safe, improves short-term and medium-term survival, and leads to improvement in clinical severity scores in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH) presenting as acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) (1)

References:

(1) Sharma et al. 2022 Hepatol Int. 16(2): 433-446