The ribotyping of Clostridioides difficile is one of the basic methods of molecular epidemiology for monitoring the spread of C. difficile infections. In the Czech Republic, this procedure is mainly available in university hospitals. The introduction of ribotyping in a tertiary health care facility such as Liberec Regional Hospital not only increases safety in the facility but also supports regional professional development. In our study, 556 stool samples collected between June 2017 and June 2018 were used for C. difficile infection screening, followed by cultivation, toxinotyping, and ribotyping of positive samples. The toxinotyping of 96 samples revealed that 44.8% of typed strains could produce toxins A and B encoded by tcdA and tcdB, respectively. The ribotyping of the same samples revealed two epidemic peaks, caused by the regionally most prevalent ribotype 176 (n = 30, 31.3). C. difficile infection incidence ranged between 5.5 and 4.2 cases per 10,000 patient-bed days. Molecular diagnostics and molecular epidemiology are the two most developing parts of clinical laboratories. The correct applications of molecular methods help ensure greater safety in hospitals.

• Klíčová slova
• Clonal spreading, Clostridioides difficile, Health care facility, Ribotyping, Toxinotyping,
• MeSH
• bakteriální toxiny * MeSH
• Clostridioides difficile * genetika   MeSH
• Clostridioides MeSH
• klostridiové infekce * diagnóza   epidemiologie   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• nemocnice univerzitní MeSH
• poskytování zdravotní péče MeSH
• ribotypizace MeSH
• Check Tag
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• bakteriální toxiny * MeSH