How is C. difficile colitis diagnosed?
History A history of antibiotic use is important in the diagnosis of C. difficile colitis. Patients taking antibiotics (or recently having taken antibiotics) who develop abdominal pain, cramps and diarrhea are usually tested for C. difficile infection. However, doctors do not always wait for the appearance of diarrhea to start testing for C. difficile since in rare instances C. difficile can cause abdominal pain and tenderness without diarrhea. Laboratory tests Patients with C. difficile colitis often have elevated white blood cell counts in the blood, and, in severe colitis, the white blood cell counts can be very high (20,000 to 40,000). Patients with C. difficile colitis also often have white blood cells in their stool when a sample of stool is examined under a microscope. Elevated white blood cell counts and white blood cells in the stool, however, only demonstrate that there is colitis and not that the cause of the colitis is C. difficile. More specific tests are necessary to dete
