Increasing prevalence of the epidemic ribotype 106 in healthcare facility–associated and community-associated Clostridioides difficile infection

Abstract

Clostridioides difficile is the leading cause of nosocomial diarrhea and antibiotics associated diarrhea, but it is also an increasingly common cause of community diarrhea. In recent years we have observed a progressive increase in the incidence of C. difficile infection (CDI) both at the hospital and community setting that could be explained by the dynamic epidemiology of C. difficile. The present study analyzes changes in the epidemiology of CDI for two years comparing healthcare facility–associated (HCFA) and community-associated (CA) CDI epidemiology, observed in a single laboratory setting. All new episodes of CDI diagnosed during the years 2015–2016 were included in the study and classified as HFCA-, CA- or indeterminate CDI. Isolates were characterized by ribotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility was also determined. A total of 272 primary episodes of different patients were included in the study and classified 55.5% as CA-, 32% as HO-HCFA, 6.25% as CO-HCFA and 6.25% as indeterminate CDI. Overall, ribotype 106 was the most prevalent and also, many patients who suffered recurrent episodes were associated with this ribotype (29%). In fact, ribotype 106 showed a significantly higher recurrence rate than other ribotypes (26% vs 11%, p = 0.03). Moreover, 46% of the moxifloxacin resistant isolates were ribotype 106. No significant differences of antimicrobial resistance were observed between HCFA- and CA-CDI isolates, although fluoroquinolone resistance rates were slightly higher in HCFA-CDI isolates (25% vs 18.5%), and fluoroquinolone resistant ribotypes 106 and 126 were more frequently associated to CA-CDI and ribotype 078 to HCFA-CDI. The increasing incidence of CDI in our health care area is partially explained by the growing prevalence of the epidemic ribotype 106, both in HFCA- and CA-CDI, probably favored by the higher resistance and recurrence rate associated to ribotype 106 isolates.