A comparison of Clostridium difficile diagnostic methods for identification of local strains in a South African centre.

A comparison of Clostridium difficile diagnostic methods for identification of local strains in a South African centre. J Med Microbiol. 2016 Feb 9; Authors: Rajabally N, Kullin B, Ebrahim K, Brock T, Weintraub A, Whitelaw A, Bamford C, Watermeyer G, Thomson S, Abratt V, Reid S Abstract Accurate diagnosis of Clostridium difficile infection is essential for disease management. A clinical and molecular analysis of C. difficile isolated from symptomatic patients at Groote Schuur Hospital, South Africa, was conducted to establish the most suitable clinical test for the diagnosis and characterisation of locally prevalent strains. C. difficile was detected in stool samples using enzyme-based immunoassays (EIA) and nucleic acid amplification methods, and their performance was compared to C. difficile isolation using direct selective culture combined with specific PCR to detect the C. difficile tpi gene, toxin A and B genes and binary toxin genes. Toxigenic isolates were characterised further by ribotyping. Selective culture isolated 32 C. difficile strains from 145 patients (22%). Of these, the most prevalent (50%) were of ribotype 017 (toxin A-B+) while 15.6% were ribotype 001 (toxin A+B+). No ribotype 027 strains or binary toxin genes (cdtA and cdtB) were detected. The test sensitivities and specificities, respectively, of the four commercial clinical diagnostic methods were as follows: ImmunoCard Toxins A & B (40% and 99.1%), VIDAS C...
Source: Journal of Medical Microbiology - Category: Microbiology Authors: Tags: J Med Microbiol Source Type: research