Clinical Application and Progress of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Liver Diseases: A Review.

The human gut harbors a dense and highly diverse microbiota of approximately 1,000 bacterial species. The interaction between the host and gut bacteria strongly influences human health. Numerous evidence suggest that intestinal flora imbalance is closely associated with the development and treatment of liver diseases, including acute liver injury and chronic liver diseases (cirrhosis, autoimmune liver disease, and fatty liver). Therefore, regulating the gut microbiota is expected to be a new method for the adjuvant treatment of liver diseases. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is defined as the transplantation of gut microbiota from healthy donors to sick patients via the upper or lower gastrointestinal route to restore the normal intestinal balance. In this study, we briefly review the current research on the gut microbiota and its link to liver diseases and then summarize the evidence to elucidate the clinical application and development of FMT in liver disease treatment.
Competing Interests: None declared.
(The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).)