Abstract
A 74-year-old woman with pneumonia suddenly developed eruptions all over her body surface. The eruptions became blisters and then ruptured. She was diagnosed as toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Septic shock had occurred on the hospital day 8. Once the shock was properly treated, but she suffered from severe sepsis again on the hospital day 13 and finally died on the hospital day 20. In this case bacterial translocation (BT) was suggested to cause sepsis by reason that both a blood culture and a stool culture revealed the same type of Escherichia coli and that their resistances to antibiotics were completely the same. TEN patients often suffer from BT because they need longtime parenteral hyperalimentation and broadspectrum antibiotics. Selective decontamination of digestive tract may be useful against BT to prevent sepsis.
