Clostridioides difficile

Article By:

Turner, Nicholas A. Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina.

Last reviewed:August 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.141860

A Gram-positive, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that causes a severe form of antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Clostridioides difficile (formerly Clostridium difficile and often abbreviated as C. diff) [Fig. 1] is a rod-shaped bacterium (bacillus) responsible for a potentially life-threatening type of antibiotic-associated diarrhea known as C. difficile–associated colitis (colon inflammation). The role of C. difficile in human disease was discovered in the 1970s when case reports emerged of a severe diarrheal illness following receipt of the antibiotic clindamycin. Victims often had fever, cramping abdominal pain, markedly elevated white blood cell counts, and frequent loose stools that were sometimes bloody. Autopsy or colonoscopic findings were notable for severe inflammation of the colon characterized by yellow-white plaques; the condition was termed pseudomembranous colitis. Subsequently, John G. Bartlett and colleagues confirmed C. difficile as the causative pathogen largely through the use of antibiotic-treated hamsters as model hosts. See also: Antibiotic; Bacteria; Clostridium; Colon; Diarrhea; Gastrointestinal tract disorders; Medical bacteriology; Pathogen

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