Clostridium Difficile Bacteria

Clostridium difficile is an obligate anaerobe, gram positive bacteria that has the ability to form spores. Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of nosocomial antibiotic associated diarrhea worldwide. C. difficile is an opportunist pathogen that utilizes many factors to infect and damage the host, often with overwhelming consequences. Symptoms range in severity from mild diarrhea to pseudomembranous colitis and toxic megacolon, the most severe form of disease, which often results in death (Awad, 2014).

Scientist want to know how they can treat clostridium difficile using human feces. Currently some physicians are using nasal tubes to run to patients intestines feeding them healthy microbes via enemas. Different scientist are finding other ways to treat clostridium difficile by using human feces in a pill that can be delivered to the intestines. This is very beneficial for patients that can not use the direct nasal tube.

Symptoms range from mild to severe infections. A patients will present with watery stools, dehydration, and mild to severe abdominal cramping, blood or pus in the stool, leukocytosis and even kidney failure. Detection of C-Diff is very easy for an experienced health care worker all you need is a good nose. C-Diff has a very familiar smell that one will remember. For laboratory testing, physicians will usually order a stool sample be taken. Stool can be tested for the presence of C-Diff toxins A and B. A microbiologist will run either an Enzyme Immunoassay (EIA), Polymerase Chain Reaction, or a Cell Cytotoxicity Assay. Each of these test look for C-Diff toxins in the human stool. Many hospitals will run the EIA and Cell Cytotoxicity Assay to collaborate positive

For the first row, the results can back negative because that was the control. The second column was positive meaning for this control this is what a positive would look like. Now from the third column this donor serum is just negative for that antibody and the fourth row would be a positive for HIV antibodies.

Furthermore, in the past 10-15 years, Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has emerged as an increasingly important infectious disease worldwide. C. difficile is an antibiotic-associated bacteria that causes asymptomatic

Clostridium difficile or more commonly called C. difficile or C. diff is a spore producing rod shaped bacterium that can cause infections of which result in a broad spectrum of disease ranging from mild diarrhea and fever to pseudomembranous colitis and life threating inflammation of the colon. C. difficile commonly located in the feces of humans and is spread though spores. Over the last 20 years the prevalence of healthcare-associated C. difficile infection (CDI) has increased to an estimated prevalence of colonization as high as 50% in hospitalized patients. (Cohen et al., 2010) This rise in prevalence is associated with new epidemic strains of C. diff that, are causing in an increase of incidence and disease severity. C. difficile infections are most commonly associated with healthcare facilities like hospitals and long-term care facilities and are also the most common cause of infectious diarrhea in the healthcare setting. With the disease severity on the rise people who are most at risk are generally the ones already in the hospital and have lower immune response. C. difficile’s main rout of transmission is through direct or indirect contact with spores on a contaminated surface. After contact whether a person develops C. difficile or not, is directly connected with a person’s immune response. If the disease is contracted there are a variety of treatments available. Prevention before contraction is the main source of struggle with C. difficile especially in the

According to CDC, Clostridium difficile infection must meet at least one of the following criteria:

The symptoms are abdominal pain, watery stools, fever and nausea. This bacterium is spread through hospitals from patients to nurses and back to patients. When someone becomes infected with this bacterium their stays in the hospital becomes longer and they are at greater risk of death from the infection. C-Diff is responsible for 20,000 deaths a year in the U.S. and costs 3.2 billion annually (Howerton, Patra, & Abel-Santos, 2013). It mainly affects the elderly that are on long term antibiotics. The diagnosis of this infection is by culturing the stool to find the bacterium C-Diff or its toxins (Mitchell, Russo, & Race 2014). It is transferred from client to nurse and then to client again or to physician or any other health team member to another client. The bacterium is then ingested and to someone on antibiotics, they are more likely to become infected. C-Diff is transferred by clothing, hands, and medical tools. When not

Clostridium difficile is a very common nosocomial infection. There are two particular recent incidents that have been recorded and taken advantage of in order to see what the nosocomial disease is capable of. One case in particular occured in China back in the span years of 2014 and 2015. This case involved separating different strains found throughout the hospital to in order to examine virulence ability. C. difficile was monitored due to the fact that it is able to produce spores that are resistant to regular control measures. This case in china occurred due to the fact transmission ability and susceptibility of this bacterium is not often assessed in this country (6).

Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is the most common cause of antibiotic associated diarrhea (AAD). Rapid diagnosis of CDI is essential to prevent hospital spread of infection. The aims were to determine the prevalence of CDI among cases of AAD in Zagazig University Hospitals, identify risk factors, and evaluate real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and enzyme immunoassay (EIA), against toxigenic culture (TC). Stools were collected from 150 patients with AAD. They were tested for TC, toxin A/B EIA, and C. difficile tcdA/tcdB genes. Thirty four toxigenic C. difficile isolates were obtained (22.7%) out of the 150 patients and those patients were considered positive for CDI. On the other hand, 6 non-toxigenic C. difficile isolates were obtained (4%), while culture of the remaining 110 patients (73.3%) did not yield C. difficile. The later 116 patients (77.3%) were considered negative for CDI. Analysis of risk factors revealed that advanced age, prolonged hospitalization, long duration of antibiotic intake, potentiated penicillins, 3rd generation cephalosporins, antibiotic combined therapy, liver cirrhosis, malignancy, proton pump inhibitors, enteral tube feeding, and cancer chemotherapy were significantly associated with CDI. Sensitivitiy, specificitiy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of real-time PCR against TC were all 100%, however, values of EIA were 79.4%, 100%, 100%, 94.3%, 95.3%, respectively. Conclusion: CDI is an

Therefore, according to the obtained results, this protein has proper antigenicity strength and possesses epitopes similar to the natural form and hence can be used to design diagnostic kits. False negative results were only seen in three samples of the patients. The reasons of failure can be due to consumption of proton pump inhibiting drugs or bismuth, watery diarrhea, possible increase in plant materials in the diet which results in stool weight increment, and polysaccharide inhibitors. In addition, false negative results may arise from problems confronted in Western blot technique such as reduction of the primary antibody concentration, decreased antigen level, proteolytic cleavage and inactivation of antigen, increased time and transfer temperature,

In the test patients are given the quick blood test which gives on the spot results. The tests show level of C reactive protein (CPR), a biomedical marker of bacterial infections showing up in the blood. In the Attenborough surgery statistics showed this test helped to reduce antibiotic prescriptions by 23% all of which may have been unnecessarily prescribed without the test.

These screening tests may not make a definitive diagnosis and high risk results of these tests should be evaluated with other confirmatory tests.

A blood sample is required for this test. It is usually collected by inserting a needle into a blood vessel.

To avoid a positive result, try as much as possible to avoid using the first urine of the day. It is very concentrated.