Clostridium-difficile Colitis - Recent Therapeutic and Immunological Considerations

Clostridium difficile is the main etiological agent of antibiotic associated diarrhoea and pseudomembranous colitis (PMC), It is considered as the most frequent agent of infectious diarrhoea occuring in hospitalized patients, in whom it is responsible for a high morbidity and occasional mortality even when the diagnosis and the treatment are pursued aggressively (1), The pathology is due to the production of at least two toxins: toxin A is an enterotoxin which induces intestinal tissue damage and a fluid response and toxin a Is a cytotoxin which lacks any enterotoxic activity but is believed to exert an additive effect in vivo (2) (Acta gastroenterol. belg., 1995, 58, 313-317).