Nationwide surveillance of ribotypes and antimicrobial susceptibilities of toxigenic Clostridium difficile isolates with an emphasis on reduced doxycycline and tigecycline susceptibilities among ribotype 078 lineage isolates in Taiwan

Yuan-Pin Hung,1–3,* Pei-Jane Tsai,4,* Yuan-Ti Lee,5,6 Hung-Jen Tang,7 Hsiao-Ju Lin,1–3 Hsiu-Chuan Liu,1 Jen-Chieh Lee,2 Bo-Yang Tsai,4 Po-Ren Hsueh,8 Wen-Chien Ko2,9,10 1Department of Internal Medicine, Tainan Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Tainan, Taiwan; 2Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan; 3Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan; 4Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan; 5Institute of Medicine and School of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan; 6Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Internal Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan; 7Department of Internal Medicine, Chi-Mei Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan; 8Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Internal Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital, National Taiwan University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan; 9Center of Infection Control, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan; 10Department of Medicine, College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan *These authors contributed equally to this work Objectives: The information of antimicrobial susceptibility, toxin gene, and ribotype distribution of toxigenic Clostridium difficile isolates in Taiwan remain limited. Patients and methods: The study was conducted from January 2015 to December 2016 in 5 hospitals in Taiwan. Adults aged ≥20 years with a hospital stay for >5 days were included, and those with colectomy or intestinal infection due to other enteropathogens were excluded. Multiplex PCR was used to detect tcdA, tcdB, cdtA, cdtB, and tcdC deletions, and antimicrobial susceptibility for metronidazole, vancomycin, doxycycline, and tigecycline was investigated. Ribotypes of those isolates with tcdC deletion and tcdA+/tcdB+ were determined. Results: Of 1112 C. difficile isolates collected from adults at 5 hospitals, 842 were toxigenic, including 749 (89.0%) tcdA+/tcdB+ isolates and 93 (11.0%) tcdA−/tcdB+. Of the toxigenic isolates, 76 (9.0%) had a tcdC deletion and were cdtA+/cdtB+, indicative of hypervirulence, and RT078 lineage, including RT126, RT127, and RT078, predominated (n=53, 76.3%). Similar to the susceptibility data in Asia countries, metronidazole or vancomycin resistance was rare, noted in 1.2% or 2.1%, respectively. Reduced doxycycline susceptibility (minimum inhibitory concentration [MIC] of ≥8 mg/L) was more common among RT078 lineage than non-RT078 lineage (75.9%, 44/58 vs 6.0%, 47/784; P