There are wide discrepancies across hospitals in Europe as to the percentage of diarrheal samples being tested for C. diff, and more than 6 percent of hospitalized diarrheal patients were diagnosed incorrectly, according to a study presented at the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases or EUCLID (Berlin; April 27-30). The first wave of results from the multicenter EUCLID study involved samples from 482 hospitals in 20 European countries. Just under 4,000 fecal samples were tested at the EUCLID national coordinating laboratory (NCL), where it was determined the average incidence rate of C. diff infection across Europe is 6.6 per 10,000 patient bed days, “substantially” higher than previously estimated. Alarmingly, 24.6 percent of samples positive for C. diff at the NCL had not been tested at the local hospital level, and 47 patients (2.3 percent) positive for C. diff at the NCL were tested but diagnosed incorrectly (false negative) at the local hospital. Only 10.6 percent of hospitals tested all diarrheal inpatient samples. There was a wide range across hospitals with respect to the percentage of samples tested for C. diff—97 percent at a Czech hospital to 0 percent in a Bulgarian hospital. Despite national guidelines to […]
There are wide discrepancies across hospitals in Europe as to the percentage of diarrheal samples being tested for C. diff, and more than 6 percent of hospitalized diarrheal patients were diagnosed incorrectly, according to a study presented at the 23rd European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases or EUCLID (Berlin; April 27-30).
The first wave of results from the multicenter EUCLID study involved samples from 482 hospitals in 20 European countries. Just under 4,000 fecal samples were tested at the EUCLID national coordinating laboratory (NCL), where it was determined the average incidence rate of C. diff infection across Europe is 6.6 per 10,000 patient bed days, “substantially” higher than previously estimated.
Alarmingly, 24.6 percent of samples positive for C. diff at the NCL had not been tested at the local hospital level, and 47 patients (2.3 percent) positive for C. diff at the NCL were tested but diagnosed incorrectly (false negative) at the local hospital. Only 10.6 percent of hospitals tested all diarrheal inpatient samples. There was a wide range across hospitals with respect to the percentage of samples tested for C. diff—97 percent at a Czech hospital to 0 percent in a Bulgarian hospital. Despite national guidelines to test all inpatient diarrheal samples, only 75 percent of U.K. samples had been tested.
“These results show that there is still more to be done to improve the way C. diff infection is currently being tested in hospitals across Europe,” said Mark Wilcox, M.D., a professor at the University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and coordinator for the EUCLID study. “It is important that optimal methods of diagnosis are in place, as errors may lead to inappropriate or inadequate treatment of patients and inadequate infection control measures.”
A second sampling and testing wave will occur this summer with the full results and analysis expected in 2014. The study is funded by Astellas Pharma Europe.
