Vomiting & Diarrhoea in a nursing home - Rcpa.tv

Clostridium difficile
detection methods
Stool culture is the most sensitive method of detection but is associated with
false positivity due to the detection of non toxin producing strains.
Toxin detection is rapid but the current assays may not detect toxin A variants
and binary toxin (see reference at end).
C. difficile toxin is unstable and can degrade within 2 hours at room temperature
to undetectable levels. Correct transport and storage of specimens are critical
for accurate results.
The old toxin detection method of tissue cyto-toxicity only detected toxin B, is
costly and technically difficult to perform.
GDH (glutamate dehydrogenase), a specific antigen of C. difficile is also being
evaluated as an alternative agent for antigen detection.
Tissue cyto-toxin
assay