Clostridium News and Research

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Disinfection intervention highlights effective method in removing antibiotic-resistant bug

With rates and deaths associated with Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) at historically high levels, many hospitals have taken extra steps to reduce these infections. New research finds that a dedicated daily cleaning crew who adequately clean and disinfect rooms contaminated by C. difficile using a standardized process can be more effective than other disinfection interventions.

10 Apr 2013

HYFFI project examines positive effects of seaweed fibre on bacterial in human gut

Seaweeds are not only tasty, but they are a source of nutrients that could be beneficial for health and wellbeing. And like terrestrial plants, seaweeds also contain significant portions of fibre that reach the colon undigested. But does seaweed fibre have similar positive effects on bacterial in the human gut? That's the question that the HYFFI project, funded by the EU, is trying to solve.

6 Apr 2013

UC San Francisco researchers outline cell-based therapeutics as a "third pillar” of medicine

Treating patients with cells may one day become as common as it is now to treat the sick with drugs made from engineered proteins, antibodies or smaller chemicals, according to UC San Francisco researchers.

4 Apr 2013

Patients taking antihistamines to suppress stomach acid are at greater risk of C. diff infection

Patients receiving antihistamines to suppress stomach acid are at greater risk of infection from Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, a common cause of diarrhea, particularly in health care settings, Mayo Clinic researchers have found.

28 Mar 2013

Auxilium Pharmaceuticals reports positive results from phase IIa Frozen Shoulder Syndrome clinical trial

Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical company, today announced positive data for collagenase clostridium histolyticum or CCH which is being developed for the potential treatment, if approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, of adult patients with adhesive capsulitis, commonly known as Frozen Shoulder syndrome.

26 Mar 2013

APIC issues new edition of Guide to Preventing Clostridium difficile Infections

In an effort to stop the transmission of Clostridium difficile infections, which claim the lives of at least 14,000 Americans annually, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology has issued an updated Implementation Guide to help clinicians protect patients.

25 Mar 2013

Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent gets FDA approval for patients showing signs of botulism

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it has approved Botulism Antitoxin Heptavalent (A, B, C, D, E, F, G)-(Equine) to treat patients showing signs of botulism following documented or suspected exposure to botulinum neurotoxin.

25 Mar 2013

Research findings have potential implications for treating human infections

Half of the world's human population is infected with the stomach bacteria called Helicobacter pylori, yet it causes disease in only about 10 percent of those infected. Other bacteria living in the stomach may be a key factor in whether or not H. pylori causes disease, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

14 Mar 2013

Left-sided brain injury increases infection risk

Patients with a left-sided brain injury are more likely to develop hospital-acquired infections than those with right-sided injury, show study findings.

5 Mar 2013

Cubist receives FDA QIDP designation for ceftolozane/tazobactam to treat HABP/ VABP, cUTI

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated the company's late-stage antibiotic candidate, ceftolozane/tazobactam, as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) for the indications of Hospital-Acquired Bacterial Pneumonia (HABP)/Ventilator-Associated Bacterial Pneumonia (VABP) and Complicated Urinary Tract Infections (cUTI).

1 Mar 2013

Faecal microbiota transplantation highly effective in treating recurrent C. difficile infections

Clostridium difficile infections have developed into a virtual pandemic over the past two decades. The outcome of standard antibiotic treatment is unsatisfactory: the recurrence rates are high with every relapse increasing the risk of further follow-ups. Faecal microbiota transplantation offers a rapidly acting and highly effective alternative in treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infections (RCDI), as Professor Lawrence J. Brandt (Montefiore Medical Center, New York, USA) points out.

27 Feb 2013

Researchers call for botulism testing in sick and healthy cows

Evidence of Clostridium botulinum and its toxin in milk and udder tissue samples from dairy cows has led German researchers to call for “statistically relevant testing of healthy and sick cows from healthy and affected farms.”

14 Feb 2013

U.S. hospitals continue to make progress in reducing health care-associated infections

Hospitals in the U.S. continue to make progress in the fight against central line-associated bloodstream infections and some surgical site infections, according to a report issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Catheter-associated urinary tract infections remained unchanged between 2010 and 2011.

12 Feb 2013

Children with eczema have distinct gut microbiome

Infants with eczema have more diverse total gut microbiota than those without the skin condition, show study findings.

25 Jan 2013

Donor feces more effective than antibiotic for C. difficile infection

Treatment of recurrent Clostridium difficile infection with donor feces infusion is significantly more effective than conventional vancomycin therapy, show results published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

17 Jan 2013

Greater selectivity in GI bleeding prophylaxis needed

Researchers have developed a risk-scoring system to identify noncritically ill hospital patients most likely to benefit from prophylactic acid-suppressive medication.

14 Jan 2013

Patients at high-risk for recurrent C. difficile with unnecessary antibiotic use

The impact of antibiotic misuse has far-reaching consequences in healthcare, including reduced efficacy of the drugs, increased prevalence of drug-resistant organisms, and increased risk of deadly infections. A new study featured in the February issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America, found that many patients with Clostridium difficile infection (C. difficile) are prescribed unnecessary antibiotics, increasing their risk of recurrence of the deadly infection.

10 Jan 2013

New publication focuses on microbiome research in environmental, agricultural and biomedical areas

Two prominent microbiologists have launched a new peer-reviewed publication focusing on microbiome research in environmental, agricultural, and biomedical areas. Eric Wommack, from the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment and Jacques Ravel, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences are the Editors-in-Chief of Microbiome, a BioMed Central (BMC) publication, which launched its first issue this week.

9 Jan 2013

New scoring system can help clinicians better identify non-ICU patients at risk for GI bleeding

Critically ill patients in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) are routinely prescribed acid-suppressive medications to reduce their risk of developing stress ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding, both of which can result from being in a stressful environment and from being intubated. Over the years, this routine practice has often been extended to patients outside the ICU, despite a lack of evidence that this population is at significant risk of these complications.