Microbiologia Medica (Sep 2011)

Detection of C. difficile common antigen: comparison of methods

  • Maria Giuliana Brunelli,
  • Sabrina Tamburelli,
  • Gian Lorenzo Molinari,
  • Stefano Andreoni

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/mm.2011.2356
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 26, no. 3

Abstract

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In order to identify and define a diagnostic algorithm for the diagnosis of C. difficile infection, a comparative study was carried out at the Microbiology Laboratory of “Maggiore della Carità” Hospital in Novara.We compared the system currently in use in the laboratory “TECHLAB C.difficile Quik Chek Complete (Inverness Medical, USA)”, an immunoenzymatic assay for the simultaneous detection of C. difficile common antigen (GDH) and Toxins A&B, with the new ImmunoCard Clostridium difficile GDH (Meridian Bioscience, USA), which identifies the C. difficile Common Antigen GDH. The results proved identical between the two assays: of 100 samples, 82 resulted negative with both tests, 18 were GDH positive with both tests. Out of the 18 GDH positives, 9 resulted positive for the Toxins portion of the TechLab test.

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