Clostridium difficile:: still surprising after 30 years

The first paper that established the etiological role of Clostridium difficile in pseudomembranous colitis was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March 1978. Since 2000, the epidemiology and clinical severity of C. difficile-associated diseases changed dramatically, especially in North America and Europe, with the emergence of a new hypervirulent strain NAP1/027. The epidemiology, pathomechanisms, clinical manifestations and treatment problems of infections caused by this hypervirulent strain of C. difficile are analyzed in this paper according to recently published data.