In recent years, we’ve seen a recrudescence of so called “hospital infections” where hospital patients who undergo simple surgical procedures at the clinic, have contracted hard to cure infections. The most popular one, Clostridium Difficile, had a death rate of 23.7 per million in 2004 and has since increased further even though most hospitals are now observing stricter sanitary regulations.
This has of course prompted researchers to try and find a solution, and what a solution they found!
Imagine this for a therapy: intestinal microbiota transplantation (IMT) which translated into English means a poop transplant. You’ve read that right boys and girls, coming soon to a hospital near you: Poop transplants.
The technique requires doctors to take a stool sample from a healthy donor, water it down a bit then thankfully, rather than having the patient swallow it, they inject it into an infected patient’s colon by using a nasogastric tube. If you alarmingly think nasogastric sounds a lot like something you can stick up your nose AND your rectum, you’re absolutely correct. A nasogastric tube is the tube that is used to feed a patient nutrients through the nose, the same one Brock’s evil twin has been wearing on his hospital bed on Days of our Lives since 1985.
Luckily though, it’s seldom used at both ends simultaneously.
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