IDSA Infectious Diarrhea guidelines recommend when to test, when to treat

New culture-independent tests are much more sensitive than traditional diagnostic methods in detecting the cause of infectious diarrhea, a significant problem that leads to nearly 500,000 hospitalizations and more than 5,000 deaths in the United States every year. But because these tests are so sensitive and may detect multiple organisms, infectious disease expertise may be necessary to interpret the clinical significance and facilitate appropriate public health surveillance, according to new infectious diarrhea guidelines released by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.