Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2015; 21(21): 6728-6735
Published online Jun 7, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i21.6728
Burden of Clostridium difficile infection between 2010 and 2013: Trends and outcomes from an academic center in Eastern Europe
Zsuzsanna Kurti, Barbara D Lovasz, Michael D Mandel, Zoltan Csima, Petra A Golovics, Bence D Csako, Anna Mohas, Lorant Gönczi, Krisztina B Gecse, Lajos S Kiss, Miklos Szathmari, Peter L Lakatos
Zsuzsanna Kurti, Barbara D Lovasz, Michael D Mandel, Zoltan Csima, Petra A Golovics, Bence D Csako, Anna Mohas, Lorant Gönczi, Krisztina B Gecse, Lajos S Kiss, Miklos Szathmari, Peter L Lakatos, 1st Department of Medicine, Semmelweis University, H-1083 Budapest, Hungary
Zoltan Csima, Institute of Health Care Development and Clinical Methodology, Semmelweis University, H-1083 Budapest, Hungary
Author contributions: Kurti Z and Lovasz BD contributed equally to this work; Kurti Z and Lovasz BD contributed to supervision, patient selection and validation, database construction, and manuscript preparation; Mandel MD, Csima Z, Golovics PA, Csako BD, Mohas A, Gönczi L, Gecse KB, Kiss LS and Szathmari M contributed to database construction and manuscript preparation; Lakatos PL contributed to study design, data collection, supervision, patient selection and validation, database construction, statistical analysis, and manuscript preparation; all authors have approved the final draft submitted.
Ethics approval: The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Semmelweis University Regional and Institutional Committee of Science and Research Ethics (TUKEB 56/2013).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Peter L Lakatos, MD, PhD, 1st Department of Medicine, Semmelweis University, Koranyi S. 2/A, H-1083 Budapest, Hungary. lakatos.peter_laszlo@med.semmelweis-univ.hu
Telephone: +36-1-2100278 Fax: +36-1-3130250
Received: October 15, 2014
Peer-review started: October 18, 2014
First decision: November 14, 2014
Revised: November 20, 2014
Accepted: January 30, 2015
Article in press: January 30, 2015
Published online: June 7, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip:Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) is one of the most common healthcare-associated infections. It has a high economic burden and its incidence is rapidly increasing in long-term care facilities and acute care hospitals. In the present study, we reported an epidemic of CDI with one of the highest incidences to date. Previous antibiotic treatment, proton pump inhibitor use, previous hospitalization, higher Charlson Comorbidity Index, and previous CDI were identified as predictive factors. CDI was associated with a high healthcare burden, long hospital stay and high mortality.