Placetnal Findings of Septic Abortion Caused by Listeria Monocytogenes: A case report

ABSTRACT

Since human listeriosis was firstly described by Nyfeldt in 1929, Listeria monocytogenes as a cause of septic abortion has been well known. It primarily affects pregnant woman and neonates, the elderly, and persons with immune-system dysfunction due to immunosuppressive drugs, malignant tumors or AIDS. Although several large epidemic listeriosis have been reported in the English literatures, it is still an underdiagnosed and underreported cause of congenital sepsis and septic abortion, because it is not always easy to isolate the organism in culture. There are 17 cases reports of Listeria monocytogenes infection in Korea, however, most of which were described about the bascteriologically proven cases. We describe placental findings of a septic abortion caused by Listeria monocytogenes at 15 weeks gestation in a 23-year-old primigravida woman. Placental examination showed characteristic and relatively specific patterns of granulomatous microabscesses composed of necrotic nuclear debris in the center and surrounding epithelioid histocytes enmeshed in fibrin between the acutely inflamed villi. There were numerous gram positive bacilli on Brown-Brenn stain.