Evidence Hub

Colonoscopic fecal microbiota transplantation for Mild-to-Moderate Parkinson's Disease: A randomized controlled trial

Jingyi Wang, Liujun Xue, Min-Na Zhang, Peng Shen, Wenzhuo Zhao, Qiang Tong, Shangnong Wu, Wei-Jie Dai et al.

Brain, behavior, and immunity, 2025

30 participants · 19 citations

Abstract

OBJECTIVE

Growing evidence supports the efficacy and safety of fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in treating Parkinson's disease (PD). Fecal microbiota are commonly transplanted via oral capsules, a nasojejunal tube, or colonoscopy, but freezing often decreases the diversity and viability of transplanted microbiota. This single-center, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial aims to explore the efficacy and safety of fresh FMT via colonoscopy in dealing with PD.

METHODS

Thirty patients with mild-to-moderate PD (Hoehn-Yahr stage I-III) were randomly assigned into the FMT group (fresh FMT via colonoscopy) and placebo group (saline injection via colonoscopy) in a 1:1 ratio. Motor and non-motor symptoms, constipation, quality of life, cognitive function, emotional state and sleep quality were assessed using relevant scales. Fecal samples were harvested before and at 4, 8 and 12 weeks after treatment for metagenomic and metabolomics analyses.

RESULTS

A total of 30 patients with mild-to-moderate PD were enrolled in the present study, involving 18 males and 12 females with a median age of 68 years, a median age of onset of 63.5 years, and a median disease duration of 3 years. At 12 weeks, scores of the UPDRS Ⅲ (group × time effect, B = - 8.80 [-13.79, -3.81]), PAC-QOL (group × time effect, B = - 29.67 [-45.35, -13.98]), UPDRS Ⅱ (group × time effect, B = - 5.07 [-8.85, -1.28]), NMSS (group × time effect, B = - 35.60 [-53.59, -17.61]), PDQ-39 (group × time effect, B =…

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 30 participants or records.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free