For C. difficile, lab assessment alone is not enough

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Anne Ford

May 2017—Toxigenic Clostridium difficile can be isolated in about one-third of hospital rooms in which there is no patient with C. diff infection, and the same is seen in the community. A study published in 2014 found that 32 percent of the samples obtained from 30 houses in Houston were culture-positive for toxigenic C. diff. And C. diff was isolated from 83 percent of the houses (Alam MJ, et al. Anaerobe. 2014;27:31–33).