Infect Chemother.  2008 Apr;40(2):116-120. 10.3947/ic.2008.40.2.116.

A Case of Lung Abscess Caused by Nocardia elegans in a Kidney Transplantation Recipient

• Park KH
• Ko SY
• Oh R
• Kim T
• Cho OH
• Kim YS
• Woo JH
• Han DJ
• Sung H
• Kim MN

• KMID: 2230015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3947/ic.2008.40.2.116

Abstract

Nocardiosis is well-known opportunistic infection in immunocompromised patients. The timely diagnosis and treatment, however, is still a difficult problem. Recently, as newer molecular techniques, particularly 16S rRNA sequencing, are implemented, the diagnosis and management of the infection are improving. We report a case of lung abscess in a 39-year-old-man who underwent kidney transplantation. He was diagnosed of Nocardia elegans by 16S rRNA sequencing and was cured of the infection with appropriate antibiotic therapy.

Keyword

Nocardia elegans; Nocardiosis; Lung abscess

MeSH Terms

Immunocompromised Host
Kidney
Kidney Transplantation
Lung
Lung Abscess
Nocardia
Nocardia Infections
Opportunistic Infections
Nocardia Infections

Figure

• 

  Fig. 1 (A) Initial chest radiograph showed hazy, irregular density in the RUL and a thin-walled cavitary lesion in the LUL. (B) Chest radiograph four weeks later following combination therapy with imipenem/cilastatin. The hazy density disappeared (arrow heads), and cavitary lesion decreased in size (arrow).

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  Fig. 2 (A) Colonial morphology of Nocardia elegans on a blood agar plate after three days of incubation. White-gray colonies with aerial hyphae have grown on the plate. (B) Modified Kinyoun stain from a blood agar plate after three days of incubation; many long-branching forms were stained positive for modified acid-fast. Some coccal forms are also present.

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  Figure 3 Unrooted tree showing the phylogenetic relationships of the current isolate (B472) and the closely related Nocardia species. The tree constructed using the neighbour-joining method based on a comparison of 650 nucleotides. A scale of "0.1" indicates s 0.1 nucleotide substitutions per site.

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