Clostridium difficile infection in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients is associated with severe graft-versus-host disease and non-relapse mortality

Abstract

We retrospectively evaluated 75 allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients to ascertain the incidence, risk factors and outcome of infection with Clostridium difficile. Ten patients (13%) had Clostridium difficile infection at a median of 38 days (range day -6 to day +72) following the transplant. There was no difference in the duration or severity of diarrhoea in patients with Clostridium difficile infection compared to the uninfected patients and no relationship to the prior antibiotic or chemotherapy usage, age, gender, underlying disease, donor type, CMV serostatus, total body irradiation or time to engraftment. The incidence of viral infections was increased in patients infected with Clostridium difficile (7/10 vs 15/65, P = 0.005, odds ratio 7.7), but the strongest association was with GVHD >grade 2 (5/10 vs 6/65 uninfected patients, P = 0.004, odds ratio 9.8). Patients infected with Clostridium difficile also suffered a higher non-relapse mortality with 7/10 patients succumbing to either GVHD or infections, compared to 19/65 patients in the uninfected group (P = 0.02, odds ratio 5.6). Thus Clostridium difficile infections in our study had a strong association with GVHD and increased non-relapse mortality. It is possible that Clostridium difficile toxin might predispose to increased severity of GVHD leading to an adverse outcome.