Carriage of clostridium difficile in hospital patients in spain, including molecular characterization and antimicrobial susceptibility of the isolates

logo logo logo Conclusion This study reveals the circula4on of toxigenic C. difficile strains among different types of pa4ents in a Spanish hospital. Most of the isolates were obtained from pa4ents without acute/bloody diarrhea. The survey of the epidemiology of C. difficile shows a wide heterogeneity of the ribotypes, the absance of clonal spread within wards and that most frequent ribotypes mirror those found in the surveillance program in other European countries, including in Belgium. Introduction Increasing age, several co-­‐morbidi4es, environmental contamina4on, an4bio4c exposure and other intes4nal perturba4ons appear to be the greatest risk factors for C. difficile infec4on (CDI). Therefore, hospitalized pa4ents are considered par4culary vulnerable to CDI. The main objec4ve of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of C. difficile in a Spanish hospital and to characterize the isolates with respect to PCR-­‐ribotype, an4bio4c resistance and toxin ac4vity.