The number of hospitalizations involving Clostridium difficile infections leveled off from 2008 to 2009, suggesting prevention efforts may be having an effect, according to a report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
Hospitalizations involving Clostridium difficile infections leveled off from 2008 to 2009.
From 1993 to 2008, the number hospitalizations involving C difficile infections (regardless of whether infection began before or during hospitalization) increased 4-fold, from nearly 86 000 C difficile –related hospital stays to 349 000. But the most recent AHRQ report (http://tinyurl.com/84qz47p), based on data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project's database of US inpatient hospital stays, shows that the number of such hospitalizations actually declined slightly in 2009, to nearly 337 000.