ALGORITHM FOR LABORATORY DIAGNOSTICS OF CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE ASSOCIATED DIARRHEA

Aim. To develop an optimal algorithm for laboratory diagnosis of C. difficile associated diarrhea in context of obtaining the most reliable analysis results. Materials and methods. 211 patients with clinically significant C. difficile associated diarrhea participated in the study. Luminal faeces were analysed by immunological (immune chromatographic assay, ICA; ELISA) bacteriological and molecular (GENEexpert rtPCR system, Cepheid, USA) methods. Results. We isolated 126 C. difficile strains from 211 samples of luminal faeces. We identified glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) in 54% of cases (n=68) by means of immune ICA, and in 11.1% of cases (n=14) by means of ELISA. The increase of bacterial concentration is associated with the growth of sensitivity of GDH detection by immunological tests (p