Nosocomial-acquired and community-onset Clostridium difficile infection at an academic hospital in Italy: epidemiology, recurrences and toxin genes distribution

Toxinogenic Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is a leading cause of infectious diarrhea. In this retrospective cohort study the molecular epidemiology of hospital-acquired and community-associated CDI was investigated in patients admitted to a tertiary care hospital. CD in stools samples was revealed by a two steps diagnostic algorithm, firstly screening for positivity to GDH antigen and thereafter RT-PCR analysis. Increased CDI incidence was observed ranging from 1.70episodes/10000patient-days in the 1st year, to 2.62 in the 2nd year, mostly hospitalized in the medicine wards, followed by outpatients (5.74 and 5.12episodes/10.000patient-days respectively). CDI positive were older than CDI negative patients and presented increased trend of diarrhea episodes as the patients' age increased. RT-PCR positive patients (n° = 314) were classified according to the CD toxin producing genes in three groups (1-3, carrying tcdB, both tcdB and cdt, and the two genes plus the deletion Δ117 of tcdC, respectively). The incidence of the group 2 and 3 increased statistically with the age of the patients showing correlation with the gender. Higher frequency of patients belonging to group 1 and group 3 was observed in the medical wards. Of note was the high incidence of group 3 in outpatients. Interestingly, patients with previous health care contacts had higher risk (RR = 1.88) of being infected by CD strains with higher toxicity than community patients. Recurrence rate was 15.9%. In conclusion the knowledge of the toxigenic profiles and of their relationships to gender, age and wards distribution may help the clinicians in the clinical management of the disease.