The aim of the present study was to investigate the colonization status of Clostridium difficile in healthy individuals. In total, 139 healthy adults from two study groups were examined at intervals of 3 months. Among the 18 positive subjects, the number of subjects from whom C. difficile was isolated once, twice, three times or four times was 10 (55.6%), three (16.7%), two (11.1%) and three (1...

The spore-forming bacterial pathogen Clostridium difficile is a leading cause of health care-associated infections in the United States. In order for this obligate anaerobe to transmit infection, it must form metabolically dormant spores prior to exiting the host. A key step during this process is the assembly of a protective, multilayered proteinaceous coat around the spore. Coat assembly depe...

All feces samples (n = 2,390) sent to the Bacteriological Laboratory, Göteborg, Sweden over 43 days were, in addition to the standard procedure, cultivated to detect Clostridium difficile by using a special selective medium. C. difficile was found in 81 of the 2,390 samples (3%). These 81 samples represented 56 patients. Fifty of the 56 patients had diarrhea. In 20 of the 56 patients (36%), Sal...

Clostridium difficile is an important nosocomial pathogen and the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea. Antibiotic use is the primary risk factor for the development of C. difficile-associated disease because it disrupts normally protective gut flora and enables C. difficile to colonize the colon. C. difficile damages host tissue by secreting toxins and disseminates by forming spores. Th...

Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of bacterial antibiotic-associated diarrhoea in hospitals in the developed world. Despite this notoriety, the complex mechanisms employed by this pathogen to overcome innate host defences and induce fulminant disease are poorly understood. Various animal models have been used extensively for C. difficile research to study disease pathogenesis. Until re...

This is the first study to provide a comprehensive insight into the molecular epidemiology of endemic Clostridium difficile and particularly that associated with a recently recognized epidemic strain. We DNA fingerprinted all C. difficile isolates from the stools of patients with symptomatic antibiotic-associated diarrhoea and from repeated samples of the inanimate ward environment on two elder...

OBJECTIVE To determine whether Clostridium difficile is present in the food of hospitalized patients and to estimate the risk of subsequent colonization associated with C. difficile in food. METHODS This was a prospective cohort study of inpatients at a university-affiliated tertiary care center, May 9, 2011-July 12, 2012. Enrolled patients submitted a portion of food from each meal. Patient st...

BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile carriage has been considered as a potential source for the deadly infection, but its role in cancer patients is still unclear. We aimed to identify the clinical and immunological factors that are related to C. difficile carriage in Chinese cancer patients. METHODS A total of 400 stool samples were collected from cancer patients who received chemotherapy in thr...

The glycylcycline antibiotic tigecycline was approved in 2005 for the treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections and complicated intra-abdominal infections. Tigecycline is broadly active against both Gram-negative and Gram-positive microorganisms, including Clostridium difficile. Tigecycline has a low MIC against C. difficile in vitro and thus may represent an alternate treatment ...