Nocardiosis of the central nervous system: experience from a general hospital and review of 84 cases from the literature.

Link to article at PubMed

Related Articles

Nocardiosis of the central nervous system: experience from a general hospital and review of 84 cases from the literature.

Medicine (Baltimore). 2014 Jan;93(1):19-32

Authors: Anagnostou T, Arvanitis M, Kourkoumpetis TK, Desalermos A, Carneiro HA, Mylonakis E

Abstract
Central nervous system (CNS) nocardiosis is a rare disease entity caused by the filamentous bacteria Nocardia species. We present a case series of 5 patients from our hospital and a review of the cases of CNS nocardiosis reported in the literature from January 2000 to December 2011. Our results indicate that CNS nocardiosis can occur in both immunocompromised and immunocompetent individuals and can be the result of prior pulmonary infection or can exist on its own. The most common predisposing factors are corticosteroid use (54% of patients) and organ transplantation (25%). Presentation of the disease is widely variable, and available diagnostic tests are far from perfect, often leading to delayed detection and initiation of treatment. The optimal therapeutic approach is still undetermined and depends on speciation, but lower mortality and relapse rates have been reported with a combination of targeted antimicrobial treatment including trimethoprim/sulfomethoxazole (TMP-SMX) for more than 6 months and neurosurgical intervention.

PMID: 24378740 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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