Survey of Clostridium difficile infection and faecal lactoferrin in Polish paediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease

Abstract number: 1733_1040

Wultanska D., Banaszkiewicz A., Radzikowski A., Obuch-Woszczatynski P., Brazier J., van Belkum A., Meisel-Mikolajczyk F., Pituch H., Luczak M.

A total of 64 faecal samples submitted from 28 paediatric outpatients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) such as Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) between January 2005 and February 2006 were screened simultanously for detection of C. difficile toxins TcdA/TcdB, culture of C. difficile strains and faecal lactoferrin (FL). Occurrence of C. difficile TcdA/TcdB and FL was determined as 70% and 44% of all cases, respectively. The proportion of positive specimens as well as for toxins and faecal lactoferrin was not different in CD and UC. Isolates of C. difficile strains (16 in total) obtained over a 1 year period were characterised by toxigenicity profile, PCR-ribotyping and susceptibility to 7 antimicrobial agents. PCR-ribotyping showed six different ribotypes among 16 C. difficile strains: three toxigenic (014, 018, 046) and four non-toxigenic (010, 035). The most predominant ribotype in paediatric patients with IBD was ribotype 014 (A+B+) accounting for 50% (8/16). No resistance to metronidazole and vancomycin was found. Investigation of C. difficile infection should be taken into account in group of paediatric patients with IBD and reccurences of diarrhoea.

This work was supported by Polish Ministry of Education and Science, Grant No. 2P05D 074 27.