01.12.2011 | Case report | Ausgabe 1/2011 Open Access
Mycobacterium chimaera pulmonary infection complicating cystic fibrosis: a case report
- Zeitschrift:
- Journal of Medical Case Reports > Ausgabe 1/2011
Wichtige Hinweise
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1752-1947-5-473) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
SCB, JMR, JCD, and MD reviewed the clinical data and were major contributors to the writing of the manuscript. MD and NS were involved with patient management. SCB, JMR, and MD analyzed data and performed the laboratory analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Abstract
Background
Mycobacterium chimaera is a recently described species within the Mycobacterium avium complex. Its pathogenicity in respiratory tract infection remains disputed. It has never been isolated during cystic fibrosis respiratory tract infection.
Case presentation
An 11-year-old boy of Asian ethnicity who was born on Réunion Island presented to our hospital with cystic fibrosis after a decline in his respiratory function over the course of seven years. We found that the decline in his respiratory function was correlated with the persistent presence of a Mycobacterium avium complex organism further identified as M. chimaera.
Conclusion
Using sequencing-based methods of identification, we observed that M. chimaera organisms contributed equally to respiratory tract infections in patients with cystic fibrosis when compared with M. avium subsp. hominissuis isolates. We believe that M. chimaera should be regarded as an emerging opportunistic respiratory pathogen in patients with cystic fibrosis, including young children, and that its detection warrants long-lasting appropriate anti-mycobacterial treatment to eradicate it.