title: Strategies for Optimizing the Diagnostic Predictive Value of Clostridium difficile Molecular Diagnostics.
abstract: Because nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) do not distinguishClostridium difficileinfection (CDI) and asymptomaticC. difficilecarriage, the diagnostic predictive value of NAATs is limited when used in patients with a low probability of CDI. In this issue of theJournal of Clinical Microbiology, Truong et al. (J. Clin. Microbiol., 55:1276-1284, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1128/JCM.02319-16) report significant reductions in hospital-onset CDI and oral vancomycin utilization at their institution following implementation of a novel intervention that leveraged their clinical bioinformatics resources to preventC. difficiletesting of stools from patients without clinically significant diarrhea and in patients with recent laxative use.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois, USA; Division of Infectious Diseases, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA lkociolek@luriechildrens.org.
authors.forename: Larry K
authors.initials: LK
authors.lastname: Kociolek
mesh_terms: D016360:Clostridioides difficile / Q000145:classification; D003015:Clostridium Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D005243:Feces / Q000382:microbiology; D006801:Humans; D021141:Nucleic Acid Amplification Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D057089:Pathology, Molecular / Q000379:methods*