Antibiotic susceptibility of 39 Clostridium difficile isolates from adult patients at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) and the National Chest Hospital (NCH)

ABSTRACT

The antibiotic susceptibility to six antibiotics of 39 C. difficile isolates (38 toxigenic) from stool specimens (14 adult diarrhoeal and 25 adult nondiarrhoeal) was determined by disc diffusion. Susceptibility to clindamycin (CC), cotrimoxazole (SXT), erythromycin (E), vancomycin (VA), tetracycline (TE) and chloramphenicol (C) was correlated with diarrhoeal and nondiarrhoeal cases. With the exception of VA, a wide variation in susceptibility was noted with CC, E, SXT, TE, and C, with a strong correlation between E sensitive isolates in diarrhoeal cases (69.8 percent). Compartively and of equal significance were erythromycin resistant isolates, primarily form NCH (93.8 percent). All erthromycin resistant isolates were simultaneously resistant to clindamycin (no zone) with only one isolate associated with a diarrhoeal case from UHWI. A review of patients' dockets revealed that actual transferrals to hospitals were largely responsible for the differences in erythromycin susceptibility among isolates.(AU)