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...

Recent evidence strongly suggests an association between the use of fluoroquinolones and Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). Resistance to fluoroquinolones has been described not only in the hypervirulent strain 027, but also in other important PCR ribotypes circulating in hospital settings. In a European prospective study conducted in 2005, strains resistant to moxifloxacin represented 37.5...

We evaluated a three-step algorithm for laboratory diagnosis of Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoea (CDAD). First, stool specimens were screened using an EIA test for glutamate dehydrogenase detection. Screen-positive specimens were tested by a rapid cytotoxintoxin A/B assay and subjected to stool culture. All cultures positive for C. difficile underwent toxigenic culture. The results sh...

We compared 30-day case-fatality rates for patients infected with Clostridium difficile possessing genes for toxins A and B without binary toxin (n = 212) with rates for patients infected with C. difficile possessing genes for A, B, and binary toxin. The latter group comprised patients infected with strains of PCR ribotype 027 (CD027, n = 193) or non-027 (CD non-027, n = 72). Patients with bina...

We determined nearly complete flagellin gene sequences for Borrelia burdgdorferi sensu lato isolates (11 isolates obtained from Ixodes persulcatus ticks and patients in Hokkaido, Japan, and 1 European isolate) representing six different restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) ribotype groups following cloning of the PCR-amplified genes. These sequences were aligned with those of represe...

BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile is a major cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. The objective of this study was to characterize clinical isolates of C. difficile obtained from various regions in Korea with regard to their toxin status, molecular type, and antimicrobial susceptibility. METHODS We analyzed a total of 408 C. difficile isolates obtained between 2006 and 2008 from 408 patient...

BACKGROUND Studies of Clostridium difficile outbreaks suggested that certain ribotypes (eg, 027 and 078) cause more severe disease than other ribotypes. A growing number of studies challenge the validity of this hypothesis. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional study of C. difficile infection (CDI) to test whether ribotype predicted clinical severity when adjusted for the influence of other ...

PCR ribotypes were obtained for 144 Clostridium difficile isolates from neonatal pigs. Porcine isolates comprised four PCR ribotypes but one, ribotype 078, predominated (83%). This was also the most common ribotype (94%) among 33 calf isolates, but was rarely identified in other species. Numerous epidemiologic investigations of human Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) have employed...