Is there evidence for oral faecal transfaunation in the management of post operative colics?

Treatment of acute colitis regardless of the cause involves significant intensive care and support therapy. Post-operative colitis or diarrhoea during hospitalization is relatively common occurrence in horses. Many commercial products claim to improve and support intestinal flora but there is limited information on their efficacy. Another option to balance the intestinal flora in a pathologic condition is transfaunation, or faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). The technique consists of administering faeces samples from healthy individuals via a nasogastric tube, and its effectiveness has been demonstrated in humans for the prevention and control ofClostridium difficile-associated diarrhoea (Aas et al. 2003, Dendukuri et al. 2005, Brandt & Reddy 2011, Brandt 2012, Ott et al. 2017). The first reported faecal transplantation in humans was performed in 1958.

To date, approximately 450 cases of FMT for treatment ofClostridium difficileinfection in humans have been reported worldwide (Brandt 2012). In veterinary medicine, rumen transfaunation is commonly used to treat GIT disorders in cattle (De Peters & George 2014). However, there are only anecdotal reports from equine practitioners on the application of FMT from healthy horses as a successful therapy for acute and chronic diarrhoea (Feary & Hassel 2006, Mullen et al. 2016) [...]