Management of Clostridioides difficile infections in patients with hematological malignancies - a survey by European Conference on Infections in Leukemia (ECIL) and Infectious Diseases Working Party (IDWP) of The European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT).

Authors

Agnieszka Piekarska, Chiara Oltolini, Benjamin W Teh, Christine Robin, Dionysios Neofytos, Elena Reigadas, Andreas H Groll, Patricia Muñoz, Lidia Gil, Roy F Chemaly, Malgorzata Mikulska

Published in

International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. Pages 109105. Sep 07, 2026. Epub Sep 07, 2026.

Abstract

Patients with hematological malignancies (HM) are particularly at risk of developing Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). The 10^th European Conference on Infections in Leukemia (ECIL-10) group developed recommendations for managing CDI in patients with HM, preceded by a survey to document current CDI practices.
ECIL members completed an online expert survey on epidemiology, severity criteria, and diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to CDI. Rates were reported using the number of responses as the denominator.
Overall, 49 experts from different centers responded, including both hematologists and infectious disease specialists. The rate of CDI in adults with HM was 5-10% in 46% of centers and in children in 36% of centers. We identified important limitations in CDI severity definitions, with leukocytosis and hypoalbuminemia being the least useful criteria. Therapeutic choices in patients with HM were predominantly vancomycin, with fidaxomicin used less frequently. Metronidazole monotherapy was used despite data showing lower efficacy. For recurrent CDI, fidaxomicin was the preferred drug. For ≥2^nd recurrence, 31% of centers used fecal microbiota transplantation.
The survey identified discrepancies in current practice and highlighted several unmet needs, including better-defined severity criteria, optimization of the use and duration of available agents, and access to intravenous agents for patients unable to take oral therapy.

PMID:
42705408
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Sep 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.