Rhetorical Precis:
Ott SJ, Waetzig GH, Rehman A, Moltzau-Anderson J, Bharti R, Grasis JA, Cassidy L, Tholey A, Fickenscher H, Seegert D, Rosenstiel P, Schreiber S. 2017. Efficacy of Sterile Fecal Filtrate Transfer for Treating Patients With Clostridium difficile Infection. Gastroenterology 152.
Stephan J Ott and his colleagues, in this research article published in the journal Gastroenterology, entitled “Efficacy of Sterile Fecal Filtrate Transfer for Treating Patients with Clostridium difficile Infection” (2017), asserts that sterilized fecal filtrates are equally effective to traditional fecal transplant therapies while also being safer. They show this by conducting a study of patients with C. diff infections, and their results demonstrated that using a sterilized fecal filtrate was effective at eliminating the infection just like a common fecal transplant, with the added benefit of eliminating risk for adverse effects. Ott, et al, conducted this research to find better therapies that can eventually replace the traditional fecal transplant therapy, which has inherent risks associated with the introduction of a large number of unknown bacteria. The intended audience for this piece is likely doctors and health practitioners that work with the gut microbiome, as well as those who hold interest in fecal transplantation as therapy for other diseases.
