Abstract
A 72-year-old male, who had been undergoing peritoneal dialysis due to end-stage renal failure caused by nephrosclerosis for 15 months, consulted our outpatient department because he had suffered watery diarrhea and had subsequently noticed that his peritoneal dialysate was cloudy. He was diagnosed with peritonitis based on the detection of an increased leukocyte count in his dialysate. He was admitted to hospital, and empiric antibiotic treatment was initiated although culture tests produced negative results. The patient’s peritonitis and the cloudiness of his dialysate soon improved and so he was discharged within 10 days. However, on the day of discharge his dialysate became cloudy again, and he had to be re-hospitalized. This time, a culture of his dialysate fluid revealed an aerobic Gram-negative bacillus, which was identified as Paracoccus yeei. Suitable antibiotic treatment with ceftazidime was administered for 21 days, and the patient made an uneventful recovery. Paracoccus yeei, a newly-discovered Gram-negative coccobacillus that was first detected in 2003, rarely causes peritonitis, but Paracoccus yeei-induced peritonitis can be successfully treated once the etiological agent has been elucidated.
