Clostridium difficile, a gram-positive anaerobic bacillus dubbed as the difficult clostridium because it resisted early attempts of isolation and culture. After some decades in the darkness, it became famous, when in 1978, a cytotoxin of the C. difficile was found the responsible of the pseudomembranous colitis. We review in this paper aspects of the epidemiology of the C. difficile in health a...

Pneumatosis intestinalis is a rare disorder characterized by gas-filled cysts within the subserosal and/or submucosal regions of the intestinal wall. The source of this gas and its translocation across the mucosa is incompletely understood. Most (85%) cases are associated with medical conditions, ranging from psychiatric through respiratory disorders to gastrointestinal-related diseases; the re...

Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea has become one of the most common healthcare-associated infections, with significant morbidity and mortality, especially among the elderly in the inpatient setting. The standard approach with metronidazole and vancomycin is not very effective in treating patients with severe colitis and hence other alternatives have been explored. We herein describe the...

Apart from inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), there are several other form of colitis that may resemble macroscopically IBD, entering the differential diagnosis. These forms are represented by infectious colitis, ischemic colitis, pseudomembranous colitis, colitis related to diverticular disease, colitis related to mucosal prolapse, drug colitis, allergic colitis, and microscopic colitis. Howev...

Background—Many individuals have serum antibodies against Clostridium difficile toxins. Those with an impaired antitoxin response may be susceptible to recurrent, prolonged, or severe C diYcile diarrhoea and colitis. Aims—To examine whether treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin might be eVective in patients with severe pseudomembranous colitis unresponsive to standard antimicrobial therapy....

1607 Over the ensuing seven months she had three more clinical relapses, each accompanied by reappearance in the stools of either the organism or its cytotoxin, or both. Each improvement after vancomycin (eight to 14-day-courses) was accompanied by disappearance of the organism. At one point she was given cholestyramine, but she was unable to tolerate it. Her illness was punctuated by malnutrit...