Korean J Dermatol.
2011 Aug;49(8):730-734.
Primary Cutaneous Nocardiosis Caused by Nocardia brasiliensis
- Affiliations
-
- 1Department of Dermatology, Dongguk University, Gyeongju, Korea. smg@dongguk.ac.kr
- 2Department of Laboratory Medicine, Dongguk University, Gyeongju, Korea.
- 3Department of Pathology, College of Medicine, Dongguk University, Gyeongju, Korea.
- 4Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Abstract
- Nocardiosis is an uncommon, potentially life-threatening infectious disease caused by several species of the genus Nocardia, which are Gram-positive branched bacilli. Most infections enter through the respiratory tract and then disseminate systemically but rarely has a primary infection occurred resulting from direct inoculation. Isolation of Nocardia from clinical specimens and identification of species is difficult and require a specialized microbiologist. We report a case of primary cutaneous nocardiosis caused by N. brasiliensis in a 68-year-old man who was diagnosed by bacterial culture and 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing. The skin lesions improved with trimethoprim- sulfamethoxazole antibiotic therapy for 6 months.