An evaluation of the VIDAS CDAB assay for the detection of Clostridium difficile infection in a clinical laboratory

The VIDAS CDAB assay (BioMerieux SA, France) is an enzyme-linked fluorescent antibody assay specific for Clostridium difficile toxins A and B. It provides a positive, negative or equivocal result for the presence of toxin in stool within 10 min. It has also been used to detect toxin production from cultured isolates of C. difficile. We undertook a prospective evaluation of the VIDAS CDAB assay to compare its performance with our current diagnostic technique, the detection of toxin B by cell culture cytotoxicity neutralisation assay (CCNA) directly from stools and from cultured isolates of C. difficile.