Journal article
Risk factors for Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea on an adult hematology-oncology ward
Section of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, One Medical Center Drive, Lebanon, NH 03756, USA. giffora@hitchcock.org1
Nosocomial diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile causes significant morbidity and mortality in an increasing proportion of hospitalized patients annually. This case-control study of patients admitted to the hematology-oncology ward of a tertiary academic medical center over a 2-year period demonstrates that patients with Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) were 22 times more likely than ward-matched controls with diarrhea to have received any antibiotic either during hospitalization or in the month preceding admission (p < 0.005), and they were nearly three times as likely as controls to have received a cephalosporin during the same period (p < 0.005).
Diarrhea among lung cancer patients was approximately three times more likely to be caused by this organism than to be due to other causes (p = 0.04). A trend towards CDAD patients receiving higher numbers of different antibiotics during hospitalization (3.3 vs. 2.6, 95%CI -1.42-0.02, p = 0.06) was noted.
Administration of interleukin-2 either during hospitalization or in the 30 days preceding admission was seven times more likely to have occurred in CDAD cases (p = 0.04), raising the question of whether or not this agent increases risk.
Language: | English |
---|---|
Publisher: | Springer-Verlag |
Year: | 2006 |
Pages: | 751-5 |
ISSN: | 14354373 and 09349723 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1007/s10096-006-0220-1 |
Adult Aged Anti-Bacterial Agents Antibiotic Exposure Bacterial Toxins Biomedicine Case-Control Studies Cephalosporins Clostridioides difficile Clostridium Difficile Clostridium Difficile Infection Clostridium Infections Cross Infection Diarrhea Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions Enterotoxins Female Humans Internal Medicine Lung Neoplasms Male Medical Microbiology Middle Aged Prospective Studies Risk Factors Special Care Unit Stool Testing tcdA protein, Clostridium difficile