FDA issues warning after patient dies from fecal transplant containing drug-resistant bacteria
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Thursday following the death of a patient who received a fecal transplant containing drug-resistant bacteria.
Fecal transplants are used to treat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infection in patients who have not responded to standard treatment options. The treatment involves transferring the stool of a healthy person to the intestines of an infected person in order to introduce good bacteria.
Two adults with comprised immune systems who received a transplant from the same donor developed invasive infections caused by Escherichia coli (E.coli) that produced extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL), the FDA said.
The donor stool was not tested for the drug-resistant bacteria prior to the procedure, the FDA noted. After the patients got sick, a stored sample from the stool donor was tested and found to contain the E. coli present in the two patients.
As a result of the adverse reactions, the FDA is requiring that potential donors be screened with questions and all donor stool be tested for drug-resistant bacteria.
C. diff causes close to half a million illnesses each year and can affect people of all ages, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Antibiotic resistance is also one of the biggest public health challenges of our time, the CDC said. Each year, at least 2 million people in the United States get an antibiotic-resistant infection, and at least 23,000 people die, a CDC report found.