Clostridium difficile Colitis

Abstract

Clostridium difficile, the agent that causes pseudomembranous colitis associated with antibiotic therapy, has been identified in recent years as a common nosocomial pathogen. First described in 1935 by Hall and O'Toole, this gram-positive anaerobic bacillus was named “the difficult clostridium” because it resisted early attempts at isolation and grew very slowly in culture¹. Although the organism released potent toxins in broth culture, the fact that it was found in stool specimens from healthy neonates led to its classification as a commensal. C. difficile subsequently passed into obscurity.In the 1960s and 1970s antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous colitis became a major clinical . . .