Table 2.

Therapeutic strategies for CDI in IBD patients.

Strategy	Type of study	Description	References
Fidaxomicin vs. vancomycin	Clinical	Comparative trials showing fidaxomicin’s comparable cure rates and significantly lower recurrence vs. vancomycin	Louie et al. (2011) and Cornely et al. (2012)
FMT	Clinical	Studies demonstrating high efficacy of FMT for recurrent CDI in IBD patients, with variable IBD flare outcomes	Fischer et al. (2016), Kelly et al. (2014), Cammarota et al. (2015), and Allegretti et al. (2020)
Vaccine	Clinical	Advanced clinical trials of toxoid-based vaccines targeting C. difficile toxins; evaluation of efficacy and safety in immunocompromised (IBD) patients	Wilcox et al. (2017)
Probiotics	Clinical	Meta-analyses and randomized controlled trials assessing probiotics’ effect on antibiotic-associated diarrhea and CDI in general	Goldenberg et al. (2017)
Antibiotic resistance mechanisms in C. difficile	Pre-clinical and clinical	Studies investigating genetic mutations, efflux pumps, enzyme inactivation, and biofilm formation related to antibiotic resistance	He et al. (2014), Brandenburg et al. (2015), and Spigaglia (2016)
Bezlotoxumab	Clinical	Reduces CDI recurrences, including in high-risk IBD patients	Wilcox et al. (2017)
Microbiome-based and Bacteriophage therapies	Pre-clinical and early clinical	Evaluations of live biotherapeutics, bacteriophage therapy and microbiota-based drugs for microbiome modulation and CDI prevention	Buffie et al. (2014) and Khanna et al. (2016)
Predictive models and personalized medicine	Clinical/pre-clinical	Use of clinical data, genetics and machine learning for risk stratification and targeted preventive strategies in IBD patients at risk for CDI	Mahnic et al. (2022) and Bai et al. (2023)