Department of Microbiology, Leeds Teaching Hospitals and University of Leeds, Old Medical School, Leeds LS1 3EX, UK
Received 4 December 2003; returned 2 February 2004; revised and accepted 10 February 2004
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Abstract |
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Patients and methods: Of 580 CD cytotoxin-positive patients, five received intravenous immunoglobulin because of protracted and/or recurrent CDD (median duration 50 days, range 4564); two had biopsy- proven pseudomembranous colitis. The five patients received a median three non-CDD antibiotic courses (range 28). Indices of CDD severity included hypoalbuminaemia (n = 5, median 27 g/L, range 1129), marked hypokalaemia (n = 3, range 1.92.7 mM), markedly raised peripheral white cell count (n = 3, 1834 x 109 cells/L), abdominal signs (n = 3) and pyrexia (n = 1). The five cases received metronidazole for median 17 days (range 063) plus vancomycin for median 14 days (range 1042) before intravenous immunoglobulin. One also received rifampicin plus vancomycin and one was given Saccharomyces boulardii.
Results: Intravenous immunoglobulin was given at a dosage of 300500 mg/kg (most commonly 400 mg/kg) for one dose (two patients), two doses (two patients) and in one case for six doses. The latter patient died of intractable CDD, three had a good therapeutic response to intravenous immunoglobulin and CDD recurred within 6 weeks in one case. In the three successfully treated cases, CDD resolved within 11 days.
Conclusions: Intravenous immunoglobulin is useful for the treatment of intractable and severe CDD. Controlled studies are needed to assess the true value of this and other forms of passive immunotherapy.
Keywords: pseudomembranous colitis, antibiotics, immunotherapy
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Introduction |
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There have been several case reports of patients with recurrent CDD who were successfully treated with intravenous immunoglobulin.57 Reports of the effectiveness of this approach may, however, be biased towards successfully treated cases. All CDD cases treated with intravenous immunoglobulin at the study hospital in the past 2 years were therefore reviewed to determine disease severity and response to treatment.
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Materials and methods |
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Results |
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Discussion |
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Although the present case series is small, it is the largest number of adults treated with intravenous immunoglobulin for CDD reported to date. Of the 11 cases published previously,57 five were children with a median age of 18 months.6 The aetiological role of C. difficile in this age group is uncertain, particularly as cross infection in neonates can lead to very high carriage rates. It is possible that published cases of the successful use of intravenous immunoglobulin in CDD are subject to reporting bias. All 11 previously reported CDD cases treated with intravenous immunoglobulin therapy responded favourably. It is clear from the present case series, however, that response to intravenous immunoglobulin in CDD is not universal. Four recent cases reported by Beales7 were all given intravenous immunoglobulin with a tapering course of vancomycin. There is no sound reason for using this combination. There are no controlled studies of tapering course vancomycin therapy in CDD, and it is likely that success of this approach may be due to the prolonged (46 week) antibiotic course, which prevents reacquisition of C. difficile while colonization resistance by bowel flora remains ineffectual against opportunistic bacterial colonization.
Population prevalence studies have detected antibodies against toxin A and/or B in the serum of 70% of individuals.8 It is therefore not surprising that C. difficile toxin-neutralizing antibodies were found to be present in nine batches from three commercial (US) immunoglobulin suppliers in the mid-1990s.5 High concentrations of antitoxin-A IgG were also found in products tested in the early 1990s.6 It is notable that the titre of IgG against C. difficile culture filtrate varied by
4-fold.5 Leung et al.6 found that the titres of serum IgG but not IgA antitoxin-A antibodies increased in children with CDD given intravenous immunoglobulin every 3 weeks. C. difficile antitoxin antibodies were not measured in the present study, and patients were treated with intravenous immunoglobulin from different batches from two different producers (with immunoglobulin sourced from outside the UK). It would have been useful to measure antitoxin concentrations, although no standard assay exists. It is possible nevertheless that the actual amount of anti-C. difficile toxin antibody administered to our patients varied markedly. The dose, duration and timing of intravenous immunoglobulin used to treat CDD have not been determined, and indeed no comparative studies of immunoglobulin therapy in patients with C. difficile infection have been performed. There are data to show that patients with low antitoxin concentrations are more likely to become symptomatic and also to experience recurrent CDD.2,9 However, as yet there are no data to correlate high antitoxin concentrations with treatment success. These issues should be addressed in future studies. In general, the dosage of intravenous immunoglobulin used to treat CDD in this case series and elsewhere are relatively modest compared with those used in other conditions. For example, in GuillainBarré syndrome intravenous immunoglobulin 400 mg/kg is given daily for 5 days.
Despite the recognition that a high antibody response to C. difficile toxin A is associated with a reduced risk of infection and recurrence, little is known about the mode of action of antibodies in C. difficile infection. C. difficile neutralization, or prevention of bacterial adhesion or toxin binding to gut mucosa and receptor sites, are possible modes of antibody action. It is not known why some individuals do not mount a protective humoral response against C. difficile. Also, the relative importance of initiating antibiotic, gut flora disturbance, strain type and host antibody response in determining the risk of C. difficile infection have not been elucidated.9 A vaccine containing both C. difficile A and B toxoids has been shown to be safe and immunogenic in healthy volunteers, producing increased serum IgG and faecal IgA antitoxin concentrations in excess of those associated with protection in clinical studies.10 It remains unclear, however, whether this approach will be effective in the main target population, particularly as CDD in the elderly appears to be partly attributable to a compromised immune response.
Intravenous immunoglobulin is currently in short supply and therapy is relatively expensive. Nevertheless, CDD and especially recurrent infection consumes considerable medical resources.1 Intravenous immunoglobulin may thus still be a cost-effective treatment option for intractable cases, particularly given the absence of proven therapeutic alternatives. The prospects for controlled studies of iv immunoglobulin therapy are not good. Notably, every immunoglobulin manufacturer in the UK was contacted in writing to ask whether they were willing to support a comparative study, but all declined. However, other forms of passive immunotherapy should be explored, and controlled studies are indicated, preferably using C. difficile-specific immunoglobulin. In conclusion, intravenous immunoglobulin may be useful for the treatment of intractable, moderatesevere CDD.
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Footnotes |
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References |
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Aboudola, S., Kotloff, K. L., Kyne, L. et al. (2003). Clostridium difficile vaccine and serum immunoglobulin G antibody response to toxin A. Infection and Immunity 71, 160810.