Fecal Microbiota Transplant for Patients With Chronic Pouchitis

The purpose of this research study is to assess the safety and efficacy of fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) in the treatment of chronic pouchitis. FMT has been successfully used in the treatment of recurrent Clostridiodes difficile infection and has shown benefit in the treatment of ulcerative colitis in clinical trials. The success of FMT in these patients is because of the reconstitution of the recipient's unhealthy gut bacteria with the donor's healthy gut bacteria. Surgery to remove the colon is required in a subset of patients with ulcerative colitis that does not respond to medical therapy. In these patients, an internal pouch is created from small intestine to function as a stool reservoir and avoid an ostomy after the colon is removed. Inflammation of the pouch, pouchitis, is common after surgery and can manifest as diarrhea, pelvic pain, urgency and blood in the stool. Chronic pouchitis occurs in up to 20% of patients and there is no approved treatment. A number of studies have evaluated FMT in patients with chronic pouchitis, but have proven unsuccessful. This is likely because these studies have used stool from patients with a colon and transplanted it into patients with a pouch. This is problematic because the gut bacteria of the colon and pouch are not similar, and putting healthy stool from a colon may not reconstitute a healthy pouch microbiome. The specific purpose of this project is to transplant stool from patients with a healthy pouch to patients with an inflamed pouch.