For a study, it was determined that as the use of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) had grown in popularity, there was a growing demand for ongoing access to healthy feces donors. Blood donors were a healthy subgroup of the general population who could be a good target for recruitment. The acceptability of blood donors as feces donors was the outcome. The researchers recruited blood donors onsite at a public Danish blood bank in prospective cohort research. The blood donors were subjected to a step-by-step screening process after giving their consent: To rule out predisposing risk factors, blood donors first completed an electronic pre-screening questionnaire. Second, blood and feces samples from eligible blood donors were tested. About 137 (88%) of the 155 blood donors who were asked to participate completed the electronic pre-screening questionnaire, 16 declined, and 2 were eliminated. Just 79 (58%) of the 137 donors who completed the questionnaire were ruled out, primarily due to allergies, being overweight, or having gastrointestinal issues. Complete blood and feces screens were received from 46 (79%) of the remaining 58 (37%) donors. Around 15 (33%) of the 46 donors were ruled out due to abnormal blood tests or the presence of pathogenic intestinal parasites. Overall, 31 of the 155 blood donors (20%; 95% CI 14–27%) were excrement donors. Finally, blood donors were a good and motivated demographic for ongoing voluntary feces donation recruitment. The researchers discovered that a stepwise recruitment approach was feasible and that 20% of blood donors were also eligible to donate excrement.
Link:www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2018.1458179
