Multicenter clinical evaluation of the portrait toxigenic C. difficile assay for detection of toxigenic Clostridium difficile strains in clinical stool specimens

J Clin Microbiol. 2012 Dec;50(12):3932-6. doi: 10.1128/JCM.02083-12. Epub 2012 Sep 26.

Abstract

We compared the Portrait Toxigenic C. difficile Assay, a new semiautomated sample-to-result molecular test, to a toxigenic bacterial culture/cell cytotoxin neutralization assay (TBC/CCNA) for the detection of toxigenic Clostridium difficile in 549 stool specimens. Stool specimens were also tested by one of three alternative FDA-cleared molecular tests for toxigenic C. difficile (Xpert C. difficile, Illumigene C. difficile, or GeneOhm Cdiff). The sensitivities and specificities of the molecular tests compared to TBC/CCNA were as follows: 98.2% and 92.8% for the Portrait assay, 100% and 91.7% for the Xpert assay, 93.3% and 95.1% for the Illumigene assay, and 97.4% and 98.5% for the GeneOhm assay, respectively. The majority of Portrait false-positive results (20/31; 64.5%) were also positive for C. difficile by an alternative molecular test, suggesting an increased sensitivity compared to the culture-based "gold standard" method. The Portrait test detected an assay input of 30 CFU in 100% of spiked samples and detected an input of 10 CFU in 96.7% of samples tested.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Evaluation Study
  • Multicenter Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Automation / methods
  • Child
  • Child, Preschool
  • Clinical Laboratory Techniques / methods*
  • Clostridioides difficile / isolation & purification*
  • Clostridium Infections / diagnosis*
  • Feces / microbiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Molecular Diagnostic Techniques / methods
  • Sensitivity and Specificity