Hines AG, et al. - Using standard clinical testing compared with duplex PCR, researchers inspected the point prevalence of Clostridium difficile stool shedding in hospitalized infants from 2 Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) for detecting toxigenic and non-toxigenic C. difficile strains. It was determined that C. difficile blinded point prevalence in infants from two NICUs was 7.1% by molecular methods, which was lower than expected based on historical incidence estimates. In house duplex PCR demonstrated excellent concordance with clinically available Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) and EIA tests, and added detection of non-toxigenic C. difficile strain shedding. Findings reported that evolving NICU care practices could exert an impact on the composition of infant gut microbiota, reducing the point prevalence of C. difficile shedding in NICU patient stools.