Lethal human neutropenic entercolitis caused by Clostridium chauvoei in the United States: Tip of the iceberg?

Link to article at PubMed

Lethal human neutropenic entercolitis caused by Clostridium chauvoei in the United States: Tip of the iceberg?

J Infect. 2011 Sep 16;

Authors: Weatherhead JE, Tweardy DJ

Abstract
The patient is a 44-year-old woman with metastatic grade 3 intra-ductal carcinoma of the breast who was started on palliative chemotherapy (docetaxel) 10 days prior to admission and presented to the emergency center complaining of diffuse abdominal pain and generalized weakness. CT abdomen showed diffuse bowel wall thickening from the cecum to the transverse colon with free fluid in the pelvis. The patient was neutropenic on admission (absolute neutrophil count of 600 cells/?l). She received antibiotics for 21 days for neutropenic enterocolitis. Blood culture isolate from admission was sent for 16s rRNA gene sequencing, which identified Clostridium chauvoei. While C. chauvoei has a long history of veterinary importance, this is the first documented case of infection caused by C. chauvoei in a human in the United States. C. chauvoei has a close phylogenetic relationship with C. septicum making the two species difficult to differentiate using conventional microbiologic methods. With increased use of more reliable detection methods the actual prevalence of C. chauvoei causing human disease may be higher than currently recognized.

PMID: 21945880 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *