FIGURE 2.

Patients with recurrent Clostridiodes difficile infection (rCDI) show significant perturbations of the fecal microbiota longitudinally compared with non-rCDI patients. Jensen-Shannon distance, a measure of intraindividual microbial community dissimilarity compared with baseline samples, was calculated over time. A, At the end of antibiotics, there were no differences in JSD between patients who subsequently developed rCDI (red) and non-rCDI (blue; P = 0.41). B, However, 14 days after completion of antibiotics, patients who subsequently developed rCDI (red) demonstrated a significantly elevated JSD (greater community dissimilarity relative to baseline samples) compared with non-rCDI patients (blue; P = 0.004). These results suggest that patients with ongoing perturbations of the fecal microbiota 2 weeks after completion of antibiotics were at higher risk for rCDI.