Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, JAMA, Microbiome / 16.01.2019

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Samuel P. Costello MBBS Inflammatory Bowel Disease Service, Department of Gastroenterology The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Australia MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? Response: Ulcerative colitis (UC) is an inflammatory bowel disease that has high rates of persistent or relapsing symptoms despite available therapies. Many of these therapies also have the potential for unacceptable side effects including allergy, intolerance, serious infection and malignancy due to long-term immunosuppression. It is for these reasons that new therapies for Ulcerative colitis are required; particularly therapies that target novel pathways and are not immune suppressing. (more…)
Author Interviews, Gastrointestinal Disease, Hepatitis - Liver Disease, Transplantation / 24.04.2017

MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Jasmohan S. Bajaj, M.D. Virginia Commonwealth University Associate Professor Department of Internal Medicine Division of Gastroenterology MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Hepatic encephalopathy is a devastating complication of cirrhosis, which often recurs despite standard of care therapy with lactulose and rifaximin. This has a basis in an altered gut milieu therefore we need to change that in a more meaningful way to help patients. This was an FDA-monitored Phase I safety study of Fecal microbiome transfer (FMT) using a rationally-derived donor compared to standard of care. We found that FMT was safe and was associated with lower all-cause and hepatic encephalopathy-related hospitalizations over 5 months compared to standard of care. (more…)