2019 Volume 93 Issue 6 Pages 759-762
We report herein on a case of bacteremia caused by Rhodococcus corynebacteroides in a 77 year-old woman who was under medical treatment in hospital for cerebral infarction. She had a high fever (41.3̊C) on day 8 of her hospitalization and two sets of blood cultures yielded Gram-positive rods finally identified as R. corynebacterioides by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. After administration of tazobactam/piperacillin (TAZ/PIPC) her fever rapidly abated, and the inflammatory reaction also became negative. On the 11th day, antibiotics were de-escalated to cefazolin (CEZ) following the results of the susceptibility test. After confirming the negative blood culture results, antibiotic therapy was completed on the 17th day. Infectious exacerbation was not observed, and the patientʼs clinical course was uneventful.
The genus Rhodococcus is mostly non-pathogenic and inhabits in environments, such as soil and groundwater. R. corynebacterioides was isolated and identified as the causative agent of bacteremia in the current case study, has been reported only once in the past and thus ours would be a remarkably rare case.
