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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2021; 27(22): 2921-2943
Published online Jun 14, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i22.2921
Fecal microbiota transplantation for irritable bowel syndrome: An intervention for the 21st century
Magdy El-Salhy, Tanisa Patcharatrakul, Sutep Gonlachanvit
Magdy El-Salhy, Department of Medicine, Stord Helse Fonna Hospital and University of Bergen, Stord 5416, Norway
Tanisa Patcharatrakul, Sutep Gonlachanvit, Department of Medicine, King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital and Center of Excellence in Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330, Thailand
Author contributions: El-Salhy M, Patcharatrakul T, and Gonlachanvit S collected the literature and discussed the content of the frontier; El-Salhy M wrote the first draft of the manuscript; Patcharatrakul T and Gonlachanvit S critically revised the manuscript for important intellectual content.
Supported by the Helse Fonna, No. 40415.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Magdy El-Salhy, BSc, MD, PhD, Chief Doctor, Professor, Department of Medicine, Stord Helse Fonna Hospital and University of Bergen, Tysevegen 64, Stord 5416, Norway. magdy.elsalhy@sklbb.no
Received: February 5, 2021
Peer-review started: February 5, 2021
First decision: March 29, 2021
Revised: April 3, 2021
Accepted: May 22, 2021
Article in press: May 22, 2021
Published online: June 14, 2021
Processing time: 122 Days and 19.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common gastrointestinal disorder. There is no effective treatment for IBS, but fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) seems promising. Some randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have shown that FMT improved the symptoms and quality of life of IBS patients, but others have found no such effects. The discrepancies between the outcomes of these RCTs are due to the selection processes for the donor and treated patients, the dose of transplant used, and the route of administration. Further studies are needed to optimize the FMT conditions in IBS patients.