Inappropriate Clostridium difficile Testing in Pediatric Patients Receiving Laxatives or Stool Softeners

Repeat Clostridium difficile Testing.

A 28-year-old man presented with abdominal pain and diarrhea (10-12 Bristol type 7 stools per day; Bristol scale range, 1-7 [1, separate hard pieces; 7, watery stool])1 after completing a course of azithromycin for pneumonia. He was diagnosed with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) with a positive stool polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for the toxin B (tcdB) gene. Laboratory studies showed un...

Detection of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in stool specimens submitted for Clostridium difficile toxin testing

The aim of this study was to determine the association between Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) and efficacy of screening stools submitted for C. difficile toxin assay for prevalence of VRE. Between April 2012 and February 2014, 158 stool samples submitted for C. difficile toxin to the Marmara University Microbiology Laboratory, were included in t...

Absence of Clostridium difficile stool carriage in asymptomatic volunteers

Introduction / objectives Clostridium difficile is considered a leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea. Currently there are published case-reports of symptomatic Health-Care-Workers (HCW) and one report demonstrating transmission of C. diff from patient to HCW. Therefore, we initiated a prospective study to evaluate the prevalence of asymptomatic C. difficile stool carriage among healt...

1626The relationship of Bristol Stool Scale to Clostridium difficile infection

False Negative Results in Clostridium difficile Testing

BACKGROUND Accurate diagnosis of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is paramount for patient management. The wrong diagnosis places patients at risk, delays treatment, and/ or contributes to transmission of infection in the healthcare setting. Although amplification of the toxin B gene by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a sensitive method for detecting toxigenic C. difficile, false negati...