Clostridium difficile (hereafter C. Difficile) is a bacteria that contributes to many diseases, the spectrum of disease can range from mild cases of diarrhea to more life threatening cases like pseudomembranous colitis to toxic megacolon (Kelly 2008). Since the 1970s the use of certain antibiotics such as clindamycin to treat other infectious diseases was shown to lead to more toxic strains of C. difficile. Starting in the 1980s, cephalosporins, were the new drug of preference to treat other infectious diseases, and again was shown to be a risk factor for more severe strains of C. difficile (Bartlett et. Al 1980). Now days’ fluoroquinolones are used for many infectious diseases, these have also been linked to a high risk of C. difficile infections with more severe symptoms (Pepin et.al 2005). These trends will likely continue as C. difficile becomes resistant to more antimicrobial agents. This can lead to many problems in trying to prevent this disease and can make it very complicated to find antimicrobial agents that are effective in treating C. difficile infections.
So what is C. difficile? It is a gram positive, rod shaped bacteria. It is a strict anaerobe and is present in the …show more content…
difficile infections is around 6-30% depending upon the exact disease caused by the infection. This was determined and compared for 3 causes of death from infection. In all of the cases CDI was the direct or strongly contributed cause for the death. Of the 501 diagnosed patients, 188 CDI patients died. And of the 188, 120 died within 30 days of diagnosis. The 30 day case fatality rates were as follows for the three distinct hospitals in the study: 20%, 35%, and 16%. This study showed that the previous mortality rate of 6-30% is climbing closer to the 30% end of the spectrum. As the infections become harder to treat because of antibiotic resistance, mortality rates are expected to rise (Hota et. al
So what is C. difficile? It is a gram positive, rod shaped bacteria. It is a strict anaerobe and is present in the …show more content…
difficile infections is around 6-30% depending upon the exact disease caused by the infection. This was determined and compared for 3 causes of death from infection. In all of the cases CDI was the direct or strongly contributed cause for the death. Of the 501 diagnosed patients, 188 CDI patients died. And of the 188, 120 died within 30 days of diagnosis. The 30 day case fatality rates were as follows for the three distinct hospitals in the study: 20%, 35%, and 16%. This study showed that the previous mortality rate of 6-30% is climbing closer to the 30% end of the spectrum. As the infections become harder to treat because of antibiotic resistance, mortality rates are expected to rise (Hota et. al