Calculations were set up in Excel® 2010 (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) based on the total number of 10,769 stool samples tested in 2011 (laboratory statistics) in ABMUHB and

a rate of positive samples of 2.68% as 289 positive patients were recorded in 2011 [19]. The assumption was made that initially positive patients were only tested once, while initially negative patients were tested PF-01367338 order twice if CCNA was used but only once if PCR was used. Uncertainty within the data was addressed by applying the 95% confidence interval as the range for the LOS results and material costs were reduced by 50% to account for potential discounts given by manufacturers or wholesalers. Additionally, the total number of samples tested per year was adjusted from 10,000 to 15,000 and 5,000, respectively, to investigate potential effects of economy of scale on costs. The rate of C. difficile-positive patients in ABMUHB in 2011 (6.39/1,000 admission >65 years) was below the all Wales rate of 7.18 [19]. We therefore changed the percentage of positive samples in our calculations to account for different CDI rates by doubling and halving the

percentage of positive tests. We also tested the impact of the assumption MK-1775 research buy that all initially CCNA-negative patients would be retested once by applying the assumption that no retesting was done for any samples and increasing the number of repeat tests to two. This prospective interventional clinical study was approved by the Public Health Wales Research & Development committee. Ethical https://www.selleckchem.com/products/qnz-evp4593.html approval was not deemed necessary as the specimens were routinely requested

according to ABMUHB policy for clinical diagnosis, no additional specimens were collected for study purposes and the commercial diagnostic tests used in the study received CE (Conformité Européenne) marking for the diagnosis of CDI. Results Five-hundred and twenty patients were included in the study of which 14 had to be excluded due to missing LOS data. While we had planned to include the first 150 positive patients, only 121 tested positive in the course of the clinical study. Thus, enough data of 506 patients were analyzed with 267 in the PCR group and 239 in the CCNA group. There were no significant differences between groups for patient age and gender. Mean age of patients tested by PCR was 75.01 years with 50.6% male; while mean age of CCNA tested control patients was 74.84 years with 40.7% male participants. Co-morbidities were similar across the groups. The mean time until results could be reported to the wards was 1.53 h for PCR, 22.45 h for positive CCNA, and 46.54 h for negative CCNA. Average time to results for GDH/toxin EIA was 4.47 h. GDH results were not reported to wards during the study, therefore no LOS data could be linked to these results. Based on micro-costing, testing cost per sample was £36.18 for PCR, £7.53 for CCNA-positive, and £8.78 for CCNA-negative samples (Table 1).