Detection of toxigenic Clostridium difficile in diarrheal stools by rapid real-time polymerase chain reaction

The Cepheid Xpert polymerase chain reaction assay (Sunnyvale, CA) had a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 96.7%, and positive and negative predictive values of 90.5% and 100%, respectively, compared with toxigenic culture for the laboratory diagnosis of Clostridium difficile in diarrheal stool samples. This test appears to be a significant improvement to poorly performing enzyme immunoassays. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.