C.difficile is the most important nosocomial pathogen causing diarrhea in hospitalized patients. Despite the sensitive diagnostic methods developed in the recent years, effective antimicrobial treatment and hospital infection control measures, diarrhea and colitis caused by C.difficile continuous to be an important problem.

In this study stool samples of 360 patients send to our laboratory between the years 1998-2000 with the suspection of C.difficile infection were investigated by using “ImmunoCard Toxin A (Meridian Diagnostic)” kit and 400 stool samples send between the years 2000-2002 were investigated by using “Premier Toxin A/B (Meridian Diagnostic)” kit for the presence of toxins.

In the first part of the study, the presence of toxin A was observed in 4.7% of the patients, and in the second part of the study the presence of toxins A/B was observed in 12% of the patients. When the positive results obtained in the two parts of the study are compared, statistically important increase was observed (x²y=11.98 p<0.001) in the last two years.

Our results show that considering the presence of C.difficile toxA- toxB+ strains it is appropriate to use kits that detect both toxins together for the diagnosis of C.difficile infections.