TABLE 5.

Distribution of different stx genes in STEC strains according to the clinical pictures of the 160 patients for whom clinical data were available

stx gene(s) (n)	No. of patients with symptom or diagnosis (%):
	HUS or TTPf (n = 20)a	Bloody diarrhea (n = 77)b	Nonbloody diarrhea (n = 37)	Asymptomatic (n = 26)c	Not known (n = 10)
stx2 only (34)	5a (25)	11b (14)	8 (22)	8 (31)	2 (20)
stx2 and stx2c (72)	10 (50)	41 (53)	11 (30)	9 (35)	1 (10)
stx2c (9)	3 (15)	2 (3)	1 (3)	2 (8)	1 (10)
Undigestible (2)	1f (5)	0 (0)	0 (0)	1c (4)	0 (0)
PCR negativee (2)	1f (5)	1b (1)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)
stx2 and stx2vhb (3)	0 (0)	1 (1)	2 (5)	0 (0)	0 (0)
stx2 or stx2 variant and stx1 (10)	0 (0)	5 (6)	3 (8)	1 (4)	1 (10)
stx2vhb (5)	0 (0)	3 (4)	2 (5)	0 (0)	0 (0)
stx2d-Ount (2)	0 (0)	1 (1)	1 (3)	0 (0)	0 (0)
stx1 (28)	0 (0)	12 (16)	7 (19)	4 (15)	5 (50)
Weak positived (3)	0 (0)	0 (0)	2 (5)	1 (4)	0 (0)

^aOne patient had a simultaneous infection with O157:H⁻:PT88:stx₂ and O145:H28:stx₂ strains (the number of isolates is 21 when including the O145:H28:stx₂ strain).

^bOne patient had a simultaneous infection with O157:H⁻:PT88 lacking stx and O145:H28:stx₂ strains (the number of isolates is 78 when including the O145:H28/H⁻:stx₂ strain).

^cOne patient had a consecutive infection with O102:H7:undigestible and O Rough:H18:undigestible (the number of isolates is 27 when including the O Rough:H18:undigestible strain).

^dRepeatedly obtained result in PCR for stx according to Bastian et al. (1) and Lin et al. (27).

^eNegative results in PCR for stx according to Bastian et al. (1) and Lin et al. (27).

^fTwo patients had TTP.