Non-antibiotic therapy for Clostridioides difficile infection: a review

Abstract

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common infectious disease that is mainly caused by antibiotics. Antibiotic therapy is still the dominant treatment for CDI, although it is accompanied by side effects. Probiotics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), engineered microorganisms, bacteriophages, diet, natural active substances, nanoparticles and compounds are examples of emerging non-antibiotic therapies that have received a great amount of attention. In this review, we collected data about different non-antibiotic therapies for CDI and provided a comprehensive analysis and detailed comparison of these therapies. The mechanism of action, therapeutic efficacy, and the strengths and weaknesses of these non-antibiotic therapies have been investigated to provide a basis for the reasonable alternative of non-antibiotic therapies for CDI. In summary, probiotics and FMT are currently the best choice for non-antibiotic therapy for CDI.

Keywords:

• Clostridioides difficile infection
• antibiotics
• probiotics
• fecal microbiota transplantation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Shanghai Industry-University Joint Research Program [grant number HU CXY-2016–010].