ABSTRACT
The appearances of typical pseudomembranous colitis (PMC) present no diagnostic problems to the pathologist (Goulston and McGovern, 1965; Price and Davies, 1977). Problems arise because PMC can be a patchy lesion producing sampling errors and because of the complex relationship between diarrhoea, antibiotics and the spectrum of pathological changes. While for many in the community antibiotic-associated diarrhoea (AAD) is little more than nuisance value, in the elderly hospitalized patient established PMC is a cause of significant mortality. Especially if there is comorbid disease, the patient is immunocompromised or there is a delay in diagnosis (Morris et al., 2002; Andrews et al., 2003).
