• Alice Y Guh, Yi Mu, Lisa G Winston, Helen Johnston, Danyel Olson, Monica M Farley, Lucy E Wilson, Stacy M Holzbauer, Erin C Phipps, Ghinwa K Dumyati, Zintars G Beldavs, Marion A Kainer, Maria Karlsson, Dale N Gerding, L Clifford McDonald, and Emerging Infections Program Clostridioides difficile Infection Working Group.
• From the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (A.Y.G., Y.M., M.K., L.C.M.) and the Career Epidemiology Field Officer Program (S.M.H.), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University School of Medicine (M.M.F.), and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (M.M.F.) - all in Atlanta; the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, San Francisco (L.G.W.); the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Denver (H.J.); the Connecticut Emerging Infections Program, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven (D.O.); the University of Maryland Baltimore County and the Maryland Department of Health, Baltimore (L.E.W.); the Minnesota Department of Health, St. Paul (S.M.H.); the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Emerging Infections Program, Albuquerque (E.C.P.); the New York Emerging Infections Program and University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester (G.K.D.); the Oregon Health Authority, Portland (Z.G.B.); the Tennessee Department of Health, Nashville (M.A.K.); and Stritch School of Medicine, Loyola University Chicago, Maywood, and the Edward Hines, Jr. Veterans Affairs Hospital, Hines - both in Illinois (D.N.G.).
• N. Engl. J. Med. 2020 Apr 2; 382 (14): 1320-1330.

BackgroundEfforts to prevent Clostridioides difficile infection continue to expand across the health care spectrum in the United States. Whether these efforts are reducing the national burden of C. difficile infection is unclear.MethodsThe Emerging Infections Program identified cases of C. difficile infection (stool specimens positive for C. difficile in a person ≥1 year of age with no positive test in the previous 8 weeks) in 10 U.S. sites. We used case and census sampling weights to estimate the national burden of C. difficile infection, first recurrences, hospitalizations, and in-hospital deaths from 2011 through 2017. Health care-associated infections were defined as those with onset in a health care facility or associated with recent admission to a health care facility; all others were classified as community-associated infections. For trend analyses, we used weighted random-intercept models with negative binomial distribution and logistic-regression models to adjust for the higher sensitivity of nucleic acid amplification tests (NAATs) as compared with other test types.ResultsThe number of cases of C. difficile infection in the 10 U.S. sites was 15,461 in 2011 (10,177 health care-associated and 5284 community-associated cases) and 15,512 in 2017 (7973 health care-associated and 7539 community-associated cases). The estimated national burden of C. difficile infection was 476,400 cases (95% confidence interval [CI], 419,900 to 532,900) in 2011 and 462,100 cases (95% CI, 428,600 to 495,600) in 2017. With accounting for NAAT use, the adjusted estimate of the total burden of C. difficile infection decreased by 24% (95% CI, 6 to 36) from 2011 through 2017; the adjusted estimate of the national burden of health care-associated C. difficile infection decreased by 36% (95% CI, 24 to 54), whereas the adjusted estimate of the national burden of community-associated C. difficile infection was unchanged. The adjusted estimate of the burden of hospitalizations for C. difficile infection decreased by 24% (95% CI, 0 to 48), whereas the adjusted estimates of the burden of first recurrences and in-hospital deaths did not change significantly.ConclusionsThe estimated national burden of C. difficile infection and associated hospitalizations decreased from 2011 through 2017, owing to a decline in health care-associated infections. (Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.).Copyright © 2020 Massachusetts Medical Society.

26 keywords...

hide…