Successful treatment of fulminant Clostridioides difficile infection with emergent fecal microbiota transplantation in a patient with acute myeloid leukemia and prolonged, severe neutropenia.

ABSTRACT

We present a patient with acute myeloid leukemia and prolonged, severe neutropenia who developed fulminant Clostridioides difficile infection refractory to medical therapy and was high-risk for surgical intervention. He was treated with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) for life-saving cure. The patient had subsequent clinical improvement, however, developed multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteremia 2 days post-procedure. We describe subsequent investigation of this event that found this bacteremia was not related to the donor stool administered during FMT. This case adds to the literature that FMT could be considered in heavily immunocompromised patients with fulminant Clostridioides difficile infection where maximal medical therapy has been ineffective and surgery may carry an excessively high mortality risk.