HONOLULU – Could gut microbiota be a better predictor than clinical factors of a patient’s response to treatment for Clostridium difficile infection?
In a study of 88 patients with C. difficile, the overall treatment failure rate was 12.5% – but clinical factors such as age, sex, ongoing antibiotic exposure, and hospitalization status failed to predict which patients wouldn’t respond to treatment.
So, “we aimed to identify if there are any gut microbiota signatures to predict treatment response and treatment failure,” explained the study’s lead author, Dr. Sahil Khanna of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.
In an interview at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology, Dr. Khanna discussed the study results and why gut microbiota may be an effective predictor of treatment responders and nonresponders.