Case report: Nocardia farcinica pneumonia in early-stage post liver transplantation

Background Liver transplantation is a well-established treatment for end-stage liver disease. The evolution of immunosuppressants has supported the recent advances in this field. However, this leads to immunosuppression and increases the risk for infections. Nocardia is an aerobic gram-positive baci...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in medicine Vol. 9
Main Authors Pan, Bing, Wang, Fang-Fei, He, Qiang
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Frontiers Media S.A 07.09.2022
Subjects
imaging
liver transplantation
Medicine
microbiological tests
Nocardia farcinica
pneumonia
TMP-SMX
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Summary:Background Liver transplantation is a well-established treatment for end-stage liver disease. The evolution of immunosuppressants has supported the recent advances in this field. However, this leads to immunosuppression and increases the risk for infections. Nocardia is an aerobic gram-positive bacillus, which can cause multi-systemic or multi-organ infections. Nocardia is an opportunistic pathogen that principally affects immunosuppressed patients. Case presentation Herein, we present a case of Nocardia farcinica pneumonia in a patient at early-stage post-liver transplantation. Following appropriate microbiological tests and imaging, the diagnosis was finally confirmed. A full recovery was achieved after optimal antibiotic therapy of sulfamethoxazole, minocycline, and amikacin. Conclusions Nocardia farcinica pneumonia is a rare and life-threatening disease, especially in patients after liver transplantation. Imaging and microbiological tests are helpful for the early diagnosis of the disease. Trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) as part of first-line therapy for nocardiosis is recommended.
Bibliography:This article was submitted to Pathology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Medicine
Edited by: Mehdi Mirsaeidi, University of Florida, United States
These authors have contributed equally to this work and share first authorship
Reviewed by: Leela Krishna Teja Boppana, University of Florida College of Medicine - Jacksonville, United States; Chih-Cheng Lai, Chi Mei Medical Center, Taiwan
ISSN:2296-858X
2296-858X
DOI:10.3389/fmed.2022.996045