ABSTRACT
Objective To evaluate the clinical application value of Xpert detection system of Clostridium difficile (C.difficile).Methods A total of 43 stool specimens from the patients with diarrhea were collected,and C.difficile in stool specimens were detected by the Xpert detection system,the toxigenic culture method,and the toxin detection method which detected the toxin of C.difficile by VⅥDAS automatic analyzer after anaerobic culture,respectively.The analytic performance of Xpert detection system was evaluted based on the toxigenic culture method as the gold standard.Meanwhile,the consistency of the results from different detection methods was compared.The ribotype 027 strain (ATCC BAA-1870) simulating the stool specimen was further used to verify the Xpert detection system.Results Based on the gold standard of the toxigenic culture method,the sensitivity,specificity,positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the Xpert detection system were 90.9％,93.8％,83.3％ and 96.8％,respectively.The Kappa values for the consistency between the Xpert detection system and the toxigenic culture method or the toxin detection method were 0.822 (P ＜ 0.05) and 0.419 (P ＜ 0.05),respectively.Moreover,the ribotype 027 strain simulating the stool specimen was verified by the Xpert detection system successfully.Conclusion The Xpert detection system may rapidly and accurately detect the C.difficile in stool specimens,especially the ribotype 027 strain with high toxicity.