Clostridium difficile is responsible for the most common form of hospital-acquired diarrhoea, affecting over 500,000 people in the USA and one out of every 1000 patients hospitalised in Europe
The clinical manifestation of Clostridium difficile disease can range from diarrhoea to severe pseudomembranous colitis, with an increased mortality rate.
Clostridium difficile disease is most common in elderly hospitalised patients and residents of care-homes, but it is increasingly being recognised as a community-associated disease.
Rapid diagnosis is key for implementing appropriate treatment and ultimately saving lives and expense.
Inverness Medical offers the Techlab C Diff Quik Chek for the detection of C difficile antigen glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) which is common to all strains of C difficile and Techlab Tox A/B Quik Chek for detection of Toxins A and B.
When used in conjunction with a two-step testing programme, C Diff Quik Chek and Tox A/B Quik Chek can identify the presence of GDH and then differentiate between toxigenic and non-toxigenic C difficile strains.
First screening the samples with C Diff Quik Chek will eliminate unnecessary toxin testing because 80% of the samples will be negative, ultimately saving money and time.
Toxin detection using Tox A/B Quik Chek is performed on GDH positive samples for confirmation of the presence of C difficile toxin(s).
Both tests from Inverness Medical are rapid and easy-to-use with results in less than 30 minutes.
The Techlab tests enable quicker turnaround of results compared to bacterial culture and cytotoxicity testing.
Rapid diagnosis and treatment prevents spread of infection and can help save lives and reduce the cost burden on the health service.
Faster isolation of infectious patients will reduce hospital outbreaks thereby leading to fewer hospital/ward closures.
The C Diff Quik Chek and Tox A/B Quik Chek tests also detect the new hypervirulent strain of C difficile, associated with increased severity and high relapse rate.
This new strain is more resistant to antibiotics, and is causing outbreaks of increased severity in North America and Europe.
