Abstract
Diarrhoea is a common symptom, but most cases are non-infectious and result from a range of underlying diseases or from treatment with one of more than 700 drugs that are known to have this side-effect.1,2 However, Clostridium difficile is responsible for a substantial proportion of cases of diarrhoea and is often indistinguishable from other causes; additional laboratory tests are therefore needed to confirm a presumptive clinical diagnosis of C difficile infection. These tests need to be rapid, not only because most hospitals have few side rooms and therefore infected patients can transmit C difficile to others while waiting for their results, but also to prevent inappropriate empirical anti-C difficile treatment, which could be detrimental to patients not actually infected with the bacterium.
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