Leclercia adecarboxylata: a case report and literature review of 74 cases demonstrating its pathogenicity in immunocompromised patients

Abstract

Leclercia adecarboxylata is a Gram-negative bacterium belonging to the family Enterobacteriaceae. It has been described as an emerging human pathogen with the potential to cause severe infection in immunocompromised patients. The aim of this study was to describe a clinical case of infection with L. adecarboxylata and give a review of previous reports on infection. We report the presence of L. adecarboxylata in a patient initially admitted to our hospital for a lung transplant. She had diarrhoea, urinary tract infection and pneumonia caused by L. adecarboxylata. The isolate was resistant to trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole and susceptible to 15 other antibiotics tested. The literature search for previous reports of infection with L. adecarboxylata resulted in 61 publications describing 74 cases. Bacteremia and wound infections were most often described, and only a few cases were fatal. L. adecarboxylata was most often found as a monomicrobial infection in immunocompromised patients, and as part of a polymicrobial infection in immunocompetent patients. The previously described isolates showed a high susceptibility to antibiotics, and treatment was efficient in most cases. Due to similarities in metabolic products, L. adecarboxylata might have been mistaken as Escherichia spp., but with new identification methods such as MALDI-TOF MS, it is possible to obtain a certain identification.

Keywords: Leclercia adecarboxylata; diarrhea; infection; pneumonia; review; urinary tract infection.