Researchers studied the prevalence of asymptomatic Clostridium difficile colonization among patients admitted to Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic’s St. Mary’s Hospital, a 1,249-bed tertiary care hospital in Rochester, from March through April 2009. Researchers tested the first stool sample of patients without symptoms of C. difficile infection and assessed clinical data.
Of 320 patients, 9.7 percent tested positive for toxigenic C. difficile. Independent predictors of C. diff colonization included recent hospitalization, chronic dialysis and corticosteroid use. Forty-eight percent of patients had at least one of these risk factors; screening patients with these risk factors would identify 74 percent of C. diff carriers, according to the study.
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