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Case Reports
. 2023 Mar 31;9(4):e14860.
doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e14860. eCollection 2023 Apr.

The thoracoabdominal wall abscess and sepsis caused by Porphyromonas pogonae: Case report and literature review

Xuming Wang  1 , Lin Liu  2 , Binghuai Lu  3 , Xuehan Duan  1 , Xiaojun Zhou  1 , Dongliang Huang  4 , Hua Wu  1
Affiliations
Case Reports

The thoracoabdominal wall abscess and sepsis caused by Porphyromonas pogonae: Case report and literature review

Xuming Wang et al. Heliyon. .

Abstract

Background: Porphyromonas pogonae was first reported in 2011 from polymicrobial infections in central bearded dragons. Human infections caused by P. pogonae remain rare, with only four cases published in the PubMed database. Herein, we present an unusual Chinese case of the thoracoabdominal wall abscess with sepsis caused by P. pogonae and review the clinical manifestations, diagnostic evaluation, and clinical outcome of the case.

Case presentation: A 62-year-old female with sinusitis but no diabetes mellitus presented with fever, tenderness under an abdominal mass, and paroxysmal stabbing pain in the chest after receiving augmentation mammoplasty. Cultures of blood and pus yielded P. pogonae, and a diagnosis of sepsis with an abscess in the chest and abdominal wall was made. After repeated debridement and appropriate meropenem antibiotic treatment, the patient was successfully treated and discharged home.

Conclusions: We report the first human case of P. pogonae causing sepsis in a patient with an abscess in China. The identification of P. pogonae should be considered if the strain grows well under either anaerobic or microaerobic conditions and exhibits strong β-hemolysis with fluorescence. This study retrospectively reviewed patients' infection diagnosis, clinical treatment, and prognosis to enhance awareness of the risk of P. pogonae infection.

Keywords: Abscess; Coccobacillus; Porphyromonas pogonae; Sepsis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-ship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Imaging of CT showed an abscess on the chest wall.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Gram stain of smear from positive blood bottle (a) and colony (b) showed small gram-negative cocci.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Colonies after 24 h (a), 48 h (b), 72 h (b) growth in an anaerobic environment, 48 h (d) growth in a 5% CO2 environment, and 48 h wed small gram-negative cocci.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Phylogenetic relatedness of query isolates to closest neighbors based on 16S rRNA homology. Neighbor-joining tree based on 16S rRNA (1412 bp) sequences, showing the phylogenetic relationship between query strain (Porphyromonas pogonae 1608) in the present study and other related members of the genus Porphyromonas.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
MALDI-TOF MS spectra of P pogonae. The vertical axis represents the relative intensities of ions, and the horizontal axis represents the mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) or masses of ions (Da). MS spectra ranged from 2 to 10 kDa, most peaks were concentrated and distributed from 3.5 to 7.6 kDa, and the three highest peaks were 4.569, 5.464, and 7.122 kDa, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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