Economic and Chronologic Optimization of Fecal Donors Screening Process

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Gastroenterology
• Health Economics

Background:

• Fecal microbial transplantation (FMT) is a key treatment for recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection.
• Donor screening involves multiple costly blood and stool tests.
• Current screening processes are expensive and time-consuming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and analyze an algorithm for optimizing the order of donor screening tests.
• To minimize the overall cost of qualifying healthy donors for FMT.

Main Methods:

• An algorithm was designed to determine the most cost-effective sequence for screening tests.
• Performance analysis was conducted using published literature and real-world data.
• Total costs for donor qualification were calculated based on the optimized test order.

Main Results:

• The algorithm demonstrated potential cost savings of up to 94.2% in screening and 7.05% in overall qualification based on literature data.
• In a real-world cohort, optimizing test order led to approximately 49.9% savings in screening costs and 21.3% in qualification costs.
• A significant number of potential donors were disqualified during the screening process.

Conclusions:

• Reordering screening tests for FMT donors can substantially decrease costs.
• Implementing an optimized screening protocol can reduce expenses by approximately 50% per subject.
• This optimization can improve the economic feasibility of FMT procedures.