Reply to 'comparison of detection methods for clostridium difficile'

摘要

We thank Monica Ianosi-Irimie et al. for their interest in our publication. In their letter, the authors questioned if the enhanced sensitivity of the Illumigene Clostridium difficile loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP; Meridian Bioscience, Inc.) assay in the frozen (retrospective) arm of the study could have been influenced by the freeze-thaw cycle. The authors tested fresh and frozen stool specimens and noted no difference in sensitivity of the Illumigene C. difficile LAMP assay. They questioned if we had an explanation for the enhanced detection of C. difficile by the Illumigene assay in the retrospective cell culture cytotoxin assay (CCNA)-positive frozen specimens used in our study.