Splenic abscess as a rare symptom of the extrapulmonary tuberculosis - case report.

INTRODUCTION: Extrapulmonary tuberculosis can involve any organ or tissue. It is a rare disease in the Czech Republic with an incidence rate of 0.62 cases per 100.000 persons. It affects mostly immunocompromised patients. The most common sites include lymph nodes, the urogenital system, skin, joints, bones and serous epithelium - the peritoneum, pleura, and pericardium. Splenic involvement is rare. Mycobacterium is a slow growing intracellular parasite. The diagnostic process is very difficult; microbiological diagnosis is critical. CASE REPORT: An 84 years old female patient with subcapsular splenic rupture with no trauma history as a cause of anemia. Splenic abscess was diagnosed during surgical revision and splenectomy. Tuberculosis was suspected based on subsequent histological analysis, which was confirmed after nine weeks of peritoneal fluid culture. The surgical procedure and postoperative hospitalization were not associated with any complications. The patient was referred to the respiratory clinic for further treatment. CONCLUSION: The diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis including splenic localization should always be considered. A sample from the affected tissue or effusion must be collected in the case of unclear perioperative findings and sent for complete bacteriological testing, including mycobacterial culture. If a tuberculous splenic abscess is found, the therapeutic process should involve its complete drainage in combination with long-term anti-TB medication.

[Antibiotic resistance in nontyphoidal salmonellae serovars in the Czech Republic]. / Antibiotická rezistence u netyfových sérovaru Salmonella spp. v Ceské republice.

STUDY AIM: To determine antibiotic resistance and incidence of multidrug resistance among Nontyphoidal salmonellae serovars isolated from humans. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Consecutive Salmonella isolates from patients, recovered in 48 microbiology laboratories in May 2012, were analyzed in the respective reference laboratories at the National Institute of Public Health. Strains were re-identified and differentiated into serovars. Their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) to 11 antibiotics were determined by the microdilution method. RESULTS: Of 25 serovars identified among 637 strains of Salmonella enterica, the most frequent were Enteritidis (87.0 %), Typhimurium (4.9 %), and monophasic Typhimurium 4,[5],12:i:- (2.0 %) and Mbandaka (0.6 %); other serovars were rare. Altogether 558 strains (87.6 %) were susceptible to all antibiotics tested and the remaining 79 strains were resistant to one or more antibiotics. The prevalence rates of resistance to individual antibiotics among 637 study strains were as follows: ampicillin 8.5%, tetracycline 5.7%, sulfamethoxazole 5.2%, cipro-floxacin 3.8%, and chloramphenicol 2.5%. Resistance to gentamicin, trimethoprim, and third and fourth generation cephalosporins was rare ( 0.5%) and none of the study strains showed resistance to meropenem. Three producers of extended spectrum beta-lactamase were multidrug resistant and two of them recovered from twins exhibited a different pattern of resistance. Resistant strains were most often assigned to the following serovars: Enteritidis (49.4%), Typhimurium (26.6%), and monophasic Typhimurium (15.2%). While only 7% (39 of 554 strains) of Enteritidis strains were resistant, the serovars Typhimurium and its monophasic variant 4,[5],12:i:- showed high rates of resistance, i.e. 66.7 and 92.3%, respectively. Furthermore, resistance was revealed in all strains of the serovars Virchow (n = 3), Kentucky (n = 1), and Newport (n = 1), in two of three strains of the serovar Infantis, and in one of two strains of the serovar Stanley. All five blood isolates were assigned to the serovar Enteritidis and one of them showed resistance to ciprofloxacin. Of 79 resistant strains, 26.6% showed resistance to ampicillin only and 24.1% to ciprofloxacin only, with multidrug resistance, i.e. resistance to three or more antibiotics, confirmed in 43.0% of strains. CONCLUSION: Despite a relatively low prevalence of resistance to the antibiotics tested among 637 study strains, the following alarming findings were made: Detection of Salmonella enterica strains resistant to ciprofloxacin as the drug of choice or to higher generation cephalosporins and multidrug resistance revealed in two thirds of the strains of the serovar Typhimurium and in all but one strains of its monophasic variant 4,[5],12:i:-.

[Rhodococcus equi infection in subjects infected with human immunodeficiencv virus (HIV)]. / Infekce bakterií Rhodococcus equi u osob infikovaných virem lidské imunodeficience (HIV).

Disease caused by Rhodococcus equi is a rare complication in subjects infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and it is associated with severe cellular immunodeficiency. The agent is gram-positive rod of the group non-diphtheric corynebacteria. The genus Rhodococcus belongs to the family Nocardiaceae and order Actinomycetales. The principle of pathogenicity is the survival inside macrophages. Formation of necrotising granulomas is a characteristic feature. Malacoplakia can be a specific cytological finding. Symptoms of disease include wet cough, fever and pleuritic chest pain. Problems persist many weeks before admission to the hospital. Chest X-ray and CT scan of the lungs show cavitary pulmonary lesions. Agents grow not only from the sputum specimen and also from samples received by bronchoscopy. In 50% of cases it can be revealed in hemoculture. Outcome is poor; mortality rate is reported to be over 30%. Better survival can be found in subjects who managed efficient antiretroviral therapy. Recommended treatment of Rhodococcus equi pneumonia includes particularly vancomycin, amikacin, rifampicin, imipenem, ciprofloxacin and erythromycin. Rhodococcus equi infection in an HIV positive subject is reported in case study of 52-year old man with AIDS with cavitary necrotising pneumonia and induced pericarditis, where the agent grew in hemoculture. This Rhodococcus equi pneumonia is the first case and till now the only one Rhodococcus infection in HIV patients described in the Czech Republic.

[West Nile virus fever]. / Virus západonilské horecky (west Nile virus).

West Nile virus (WNV) is a member of the Flaviviridae family, genus Flavivirus. Its reservoir hosts are wild birds. Infection is transmitted to humans by infected mosquitoes of the genus Culex. In most cases, it is either asymptomatic or manifests itself as mild fever. Typically, WNV illnesshas a sudden onset with fever above 39 degrees C and accompanying symptoms such as chills, headache, arthralgia, myalgia, back ache, cough and sore throat. Gastrointestinal symptoms are frequently reported. Generalized lymphadenopathy and conjunctivitis may develop. In some patients the infection can progress to meningoencephalitis. Diagnosis is currently based on detection of IgM antibodies in blood and cerebrospinal fluid or direct detection of WNV RNA.

Disseminated Nocardia asteroides infection in an immunocompetent woman following an arm injury.

A case of disseminated infection with Nocardia asteroides in a 55-year-old immunocompetent woman after mild trauma to the arm is reported. Secondary dissemination was identified in the skin, right kidney, liver, peritoneal cavity, lungs and thigh. The patient was successfully treated with surgical drainage and a 9-week course of antibiotics including cefotaxime, amikacin, chloramphenicol, trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) and doxycycline. The administration of TMP/SMX in combination with doxycycline was clinically beneficial despite in vitro resistance.

Infective endocarditis caused by unusual gram-positive pathogens.

Of a total of 81 patients hospitalized in the infectious diseases department in 1990-2000 with infectious endocarditis caused by Gram-positive pathogen, unusual etiological agents were found in several cases: Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Corynebacterium diphtheriae, and Gemella morbillorum. Cardiac defects were present in the latter two patients: bicuspid aortic valve and tetralogy of Fallot. Two patients were successfully treated with antibiotics only and one patient with antibiotics and surgery. The patient with C. diphtheriae endocarditis died due to progressive sepsis and multiple organ failure.

[Comparison of various methods of hemoculture tests]. / Porovnání ruzných zpusobu hemokultivacního vysetrení.

Three methods of blood cultivation were compared: collection of blood into transport bottles containing only dextran-sulphate, collection into cultivation media containing bottles (aerobic, anaerobic and paediatric Dulab) and the semi-automatic continuous blood culture system (Bactec 9000, using aerobic, anaerobic and paediatric bottles). A total amount of 1.250 blood samples collected from 626 patients was divided equally into the compared bottles and processed parallelly. The yield of the Bactec aerobic bottles was significantly higher than the yield of the transport bottles and aerobic Dulab bottles (p < 0.001). However, this result was influenced by the higher rate of contaminating bacteria isolated from the aerobic Bactec bottles. The yield of the aerobic Dulab bottles was higher than the yield of the transport bottles (p < 0.01). The average time needed for the detection of microorganisms in the Bactec bottles was by 24 hours shorter than in the transport bottles and by 19 hours shorter than in the aerobic Dulab bottles (p < 0.001). The difference between the yields of the anaerobic and the paediatric bottles in our study was not significant. The time needed for the detection of microorganisms was by 17 hours shorter in the anaerobic Bactec bottles than in the transport bottles (p < 0.05).

Mycobacterial infections in patients with AIDS in a low HIV prevalence area.

The Czech Republic is characterized here as both a low HIV prevalence area (1.64 registered positivity per 10(5) population and 45 AIDS patients notified in the 1986-93 period) and a low tuberculosis prevalence area (mortality rate 0.8, incidence of bacillary pulmonary cases 11.3 per 10(5) population and risk of infection 0.04 in 1990). From 1986 to 1993 a total of 10 cases of mycobacterial infections complicating AIDS or ARC disease were registered in the Czech Republic in 9 male patients aged from 29 to 55, 8 homosexuals, and one woman aged 48. Classical pulmonary tuberculosis caused by M. tuberculosis was diagnosed in one male patient and was controlled by antituberculosis chemotherapy. The remaining mycobacterial infections were caused by the following opportunistic mycobacterial pathogens. (a) M. avium in five individuals, four of them died of a disseminated disease; (b) M. kansasii--in two patients, one died of a disseminated infection; (c) M. xenopi--involved in a fatal generalized CMV, and cryptococcal and mycobacterial infection; (d) M. fortuitum caused a generalized disease in a case of exhaustive multifocal encephalopathy. Authors conclude that under conditions of low prevalence of both HIV and tuberculosis infection the risk to AIDS patients of contracting classical tuberculosis is low. A relatively frequent occurrence of non-tuberculosis mycobacterial disease in AIDS patients afflicted with the impaired immunity is explained by transmission of opportunistic mycobacteria from the environment.

[Salmonella bulovka 6,7:z44:--a new serovar isolated in Czechoslovakia]. / Salmonella bulovka 6,7: z44:--nový sérovar izolovaný v Ceskoslovensku.

The authors describe a new serovar of Salmonella, Salmonella bulovka, isolated from the faeces of a 35-year-old man with diarrhoea. The antigenic formula is 6.7:z44:--.