Symptoms And Treatment Of Clostridium Difficile

Clostridium difficile is a particularly challenging and difficult infection to control. Because Clostridium difficile spores can live on dry surfaces for long periods of time, teaching must include the importance of cleaning surfaces and

Clostridium difficile is a gram-positive bacterium which causes diarrhoea. It also known as antibiotic associated diarrhoea and also pseudomembranous colitis. The bacterium secretes large protein toxin that also causes toxic mega colon. Clostridium difficile is caused by when a person is given one of the following antibiotics: Cephalosporin, penicillin (particularly Ampicillin or Amoxicillin), Clindamycin and Fluoroquinolone. The antibiotic will remove the entire normal flora in the colon. The lack of normal flora will make the person vulnerable to infection especially to Clostridium difficile because Clostridium difficile produces hardy spores

Clostridium difficile has infected up to 500,000 people in the United States every year. Clostridium difficile is a bacterial infection it can cause diarrhea and also a fever. It has also caused death among people. There has been a recorded 14,000 deaths from Clostridium difficile a year.

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

Clostridium difficile (C-diff) is a bacterium of the intestine that usually develops after the start of antibiotics in at risk patients. C-diff causes inflammation of the intestine by irritating the lining of the intestinal wall. C-diff can cause many symptoms with lose stool multiple times throughout the day for more than two days being the most common. Severe infections can lead to hemodynamic changes in the body that could lead to hospitalization and/or surgery. The spores from C-diff can be passed on from months if an affected surface is not properly cleaned after being exposed to the bacteria. Proper hand washing must take place to avoid ingestion of the bacteria. C-diff is a form

Antibiotic-associated Clostridium difficile is bacteria that can cause an array of symptoms from mild to moderate diarrhea, to a more severe and life-threatening inflammation of the colon called colitis. This form of C. difficile mainly occurs in people who have been on antibiotics, mainly for an unrelated infection. This bacterium is grouped into two separate classes; active and inactive. In the active class the bacteria cannot survive in our environment for an extended period of time. In the inactive or noninfectious class the bacteria can survive in our environment. The inactive class is also called a spore. C. difficile spores are often found in hospitals, nursing homes, and newborn nurseries. C. difficile spores can be found on; telephones, bedpans, furnishings, floors, in and around bathrooms, linens, stethoscopes, medical equipment, under fingernails, rings and other jewelry, infants' rooms, diaper pails,

Clostrium Difficile, also known as “C-Diff”, is a bacteria found in environmental things such as; air, soil, water and human and animal feces. It can also be found in food products most commonly processed meats. C-Diff has been linked to antibiotic-associated diarrhea and colitis. In 1994, J.G Bartlett researched that “C-Diff accounts for 10-25% of all cases of antibiotic-associated diarrhea, and virtually all cases of antibiotic pseudomembranous colitis.” Clostrium Difficile is most commonly associated with health care facilities including; hospitals, nursing homes and rehabilitation centers. The bacteria found in c-diff are passed when health care professionals do not wash their hands properly and touch foods, objects and surfaces. This is an important reason why we as health care professionals need to remember to put our hand washing into full affect at all times, remembering to wash our hands

Clostridium difficile is a gram positive; spore-forming rod and it is part of the flora neonates. It contains 3 types of toxins- Toxin A, Toxin B and binary toxins. Toxins A and B are proinflammatory and cytotoxic, they are the primary markers for the identification of C. difficile as they cause the disturbance of actin cytoskeleton and impairment of tight junctions in human epithelial cells, resulting in fluid build-up and extensive damage to the large intestine (Carter, Rood, and Lyras, 2010).

Clostridium difficile is a bacterium that is found in the human colonic flora that can cause diarrhea and more serious conditions, such as colitis. This occurs if the physiological bacterial flora is changed or damaged due to prolonged antibiotic use and if the concentration of C. difficile increases significantly. The prolonged antibiotic use enables C. difficile to multiply and produce large amounts of dangerous toxins. Therapy for those who suffer from this includes rehydration, immediate stop of the causative antibiotic (usually clindamycin or amoxicillin), and new antibiotics to reverse the symptoms such as vancomycin. C. difficile is easily transmitted within hospital settings because its spores are resistant to the commonly used alcohol

Clostridium difficile was initially thought to be part of the normal flora and C. difficile infections were miss identified as Staphylococcus aureus or Candida albicans. The C. difficile toxin was later identified in 1977 after a clinical trial using clindamycin caused patients to have diarrhea. The next year, in 1978, antibiotic use was quickly discovered as the major risk factor (Brymer, 2007). Clostridia belong to the phylum Firmicutes and comprise a heterogeneous group consisting of at least 12 lineages. Morphological and phenotypic properties that have traditionally been used to define the genus include the formation of endospores, anaerobic energy metabolism, an inability to reduce sulfate to sulfide, and a Gram- positive cell wall structure. Clostridia usually form spores only under anaerobic conditions, they grow better anaerobically than in air (Stevens,2015). Clostridium difficile infection is the most common infectious cause of diarrhea in the Intensive Care Unit.

difficile infection, but all of these methods have limitations and some of them are now considered suboptimal(2). The ideal laboratory test for CDI would be sensitive, specific, rapid, simple to perform, and inexpensive. Culture Just after the discovery of the pathogenic role of C. difficile proposed a selective agar plate called CCFA (cycloserine cefoxitin fructose agar) for the isolation from stool specimens. The selective agents are cycloserine at a concentration of 500 mg/L and cefoxitin at 16 mg/L. Culture is the most sensitive method but it is not very specific due to the possibility of isolating non-toxigenic isolates (14). Fecal diagnostic tests anaerobic toxigenic culture of C. difficile and the cell culture cytotoxicity assay, with neutralization with clostridial antitoxin, are the most sensitive for diagnosis of CDI but time-consuming (5). For many years, cell culture cytotoxicity neutralization assay (CCCNA) was the accepted gold standard. By this method, stool filtrates are inoculated onto a monolayer of a cell culture in wells with and without C. difficile antitoxin. CCCNA is quite specific for CDI. However, the assay is expensive, lacks standardization among laboratories and is generally unavailable outside the research setting (11). The enzyme immunoassay (EIA) became broadly used because of its rapidity in performance, but EIA used for toxin detection lack sensitivity and are considered suboptimal for diagnosing C. Difficile infection (11). A laboratory assay measuring the clostridial protein, glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), represents a rapid,

The presence of C. difficile in the bacterial flora of human gut normally causes no harm. C. difficile represents a problem when overgrows due to the used of antibiotics, which destroy the normal flora that held C. difficile in balance. This makes C. difficile grow faster and colonizing the human colon. When colonization occurs, the toxins from C. difficile cause diarrhea and life-threatening colitis (Nazarko, 2015, p. 21).

People getting a medical care can get a serious infection. One type of healthcare-associated infection is caused by the germ C difficile was estimated to cause almost half a million infections in the United States in 2011, and 29,000 died within 30 days of the initial diagnosis (Centers for Disease, control, and prevention, 2015, 25). Some of the things do prevent Clostridium difficile infection in the hospital and another healthcare setting place patients infection in private room, omplement an environment cleaning and disifection strategy.

In the search of patents, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) used for the treatment of Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs) were chosen in respect to previous research conducted for mAbs. In the U.S. alone, there are roughly a quarter of a million CDI related cases reported by clinics. Some patients develop severe symptoms of the infection and require extended medical treatment increasing medical expenses (Wilkins & Lyerly, 2003). Several strains of the bacterium have shown to be hypervirulent and have developed resistance to various antibiotics (Hernandez et al., 2015). In order to treat the tenacious bacterium, research on treatment alternatives for CDI has been in high demand. Relatively recently, Progenics Pharmaceuticals, Inc has applied and been approved for a patent for mAbs used to treat CDIs (Progenics Pharmaceuticals Submits Patent Application for Antibodies for the Treatment of Clostridium Difficile-Associated Infection and Disease, 2015).

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).