Clostridium Difficile News and Research

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Clostridium difficile is a type of bacterium found in human and animal waste. Clostridium difficile is a common cause of diarrhea that occurs in hospitals. It can also cause diarrhea or other intestinal disorders in patients treated with antibiotics.

U-M microbiome research may lead to new ways to prevent, fight lung infections in patients

With every breath you take, microbes have a chance of making it into your lungs. But what happens when they get there? And why do dangerous lung infections like pneumonia happen in some people, but not others? Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School have started to answer these questions by studying the microbiome of the lungs - the community of microscopic organisms that are in constant contact with our respiratory system.

18 Aug 2015

Major gaps found in existing evidence for best practices for cleaning hospital room surfaces to prevent HAIs

Tray tables, bed rails, light switches, and toilets: All are common vectors for swapping germs between patients and health care workers. While a new systematic overview in this week's Annals of Internal Medicine points to several promising cleaning tactics of these "high-touch surfaces," there's a lack of evidence as to which is the most effective at reducing healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).

11 Aug 2015

IU scientists find evidence that invisible war between microorganisms may affect human health

Health experts have warned for years that the overuse of antibiotics is creating "superbugs" able to resist drugs treating infection.

31 Jul 2015

Hospitals can make patients sick, reveals Consumer Reports

Hospitals are thought to be sterile, safe environments where sick people get better, not sicker. But that's not always the case according to a new investigation by Consumer Reports into hospital-acquired infections.

29 Jul 2015

Mix of bacteria living in guts may band together to ward off dangerous infections

Like a collection of ragtag villagers fighting off an invading army, the mix of bacteria that live in our guts may band together to keep dangerous infections from taking hold, new research suggests.

24 Jul 2015

MGB Biopharma begins MGB-BP-3 Phase I clinical trial for treatment of Clostridium difficile infections

MGB Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company developing a truly novel class of anti-infectives, to address the major global problem of antibiotic resistance today announces that the first group of healthy male volunteers have been dosed in a Phase I clinical trial assessing the safety and tolerability of an oral formulation of MGB-BP-3, for use in the treatment of Clostridium difficile infections.

21 Jul 2015

UTHealth scientist receives $1.9 million from NIH to develop non-antibiotic treatment for C. diff infections

Charles Darkoh, Ph.D., a researcher at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, was recently awarded a five-year, $1.9 million R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health to develop a non-antibiotic treatment for Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections.

10 Jul 2015

New collection of papers adds to mounting evidence of gut microbiome’s influential role in health

A newly released collection of papers, the result of the Gut in Focus Symposium Nobel Forum held earlier this year, is adding to the mounting evidence of the influential role the gut microbiome plays in health.

1 Jul 2015

IPs spend more time in collecting and reporting hospital infection data than protecting patients

Collecting and reporting hospital infection data to federal health agencies takes more than 5 hours each day, at the expense of time needed to ensure that frontline healthcare personnel are adhering to basic infection prevention practices such as hand hygiene, according to a recent case study, to be presented on Saturday, June 27 at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

26 Jun 2015

NHS Scotland's Golden Jubilee National Hospital deploys MicroStrategy platforms to improve patient care, enhance operations

MicroStrategy® Incorporated, a leading worldwide provider of enterprise software platforms, today announced that NHS Scotland's Golden Jubilee National Hospital has deployed the MicroStrategy Analytics Platform™ and MicroStrategy Mobile™ to monitor, report, and analyze over 200 quality indicators consisting of patient care, staffing, and performance metrics.

24 Jun 2015

Stable IV formulation to treat systemic susceptible and resistant Gram-positive hospital-acquired infections

MGB Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company developing a truly novel class of anti-infectives, to address the major global problem of antibiotic resistance - announces that it has developed a stable intravenous (IV) formulation of MGB-BP-3, designed for the treatment of systemic susceptible and resistant Gram-positive hospital-acquired infections.

2 Jun 2015

Salix Pharmaceuticals receives FDA approval for Xifaxan 550 mg to treat IBS-D in adults

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Salix Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Xifaxan 550 mg for the treatment of IBS-D in adults.

28 May 2015

Roche announces FDA clearance for cobas Cdiff Test to detect C. difficile in stool specimens

Roche announced today that the US Food and Drug Administration has provided 510(k) clearance for the cobas Cdiff Test to detect Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) in stool specimens.

26 May 2015

CSGI joins with two California hospitals to eradicate deadly Clostridium difficile infections

Clean Sweep Group Inc., a Beverly Hills, CA, based microbial disinfection service company, joins with two California hospitals to significantly reduce deadly Clostridium difficile infections caught in their hospitals using ultraviolet (UV-C) germ-killing advanced disinfection devices.

21 May 2015

Treatment significantly reduces risk of CDI recurrence

Among patients with Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) who recovered following standard treatment with the antibiotics metronidazole or vancomycin, oral administration of spores of a strain of C difficile that does not produce toxins colonized the gastrointestinal tract and significantly reduced CDI recurrence, according to a study in the May 5 issue of JAMA.

7 May 2015

Fecal transplantation cures C. diff infection, eliminates multi-drug resistant pathogens

A fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) not only cured a case of Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection in a 66 year old man; it eliminated populations of multi-drug resistant organisms both in the patient's gastrointestinal tract, and several other body sites.

7 May 2015

Luminex provides clinical trial update on ARIES HSV 1&2 Assay

Luminex Corporation today announced that testing at the clinical trial sites for the ARIES HSV 1&2 Assay is now complete. The next steps, including site to site reproducibility testing, followed by data analysis and assembly of the data package for submission to the FDA, are now underway.

From Luminex 28 Apr 2015

TAXIS Pharmaceuticals' TXA709 compound shows promise in combating antibiotic resistance

TAXIS Pharmaceuticals, a drug-discovery company focused on developing a new class of antibiotic agents to treat life-threatening, multidrug-resistant bacterial infections, today announced the presentation of data demonstrating the promise of its lead clinical candidate, TXA709, in combating antibiotic resistance.

27 Apr 2015

U-M study: Nearly half of American hospitals not taking key steps to prevent C. diff infections

Nearly half of American hospitals aren't taking key steps to prevent a kind of gut infection that kills nearly 30,000 people annually and sickens hundreds of thousands more - despite strong evidence that such steps work, according to a new study.

25 Apr 2015

Focus Diagnostics announces FDA clearance for Simplexa Group A Strep Direct Kit

Focus Diagnostics, the clinical-laboratory products business of Quest Diagnostics, today announced the FDA 510(k) clearance and CLIA moderate-complexity categorization for its Simplexa Group A Strep Direct Kit. Simplexa Group A Strep Direct is a real-time polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of Group A Streptococcus bacteria directly from throat swabs.

From Quest Diagnostics 15 Apr 2015