Disseminated infection with Mycobacterium gordonae: report of a case and critical review of the literature.

Mycobacterium gordonae is only rarely a cause of infection despite its ubiquity in the environment. We describe an 11-year-old girl with disseminated infection due to M. gordonae whose course was complicated by renal failure requiring hemodialysis but who recovered after 15 months of chemotherapy. In a literature search we identified 23 additional cases of infection attributed to M. gordonae, with involvement of the lungs (eight), soft tissue (seven), the peritoneal cavity (three), the cornea (one), and with disseminated disease (five patients, including ours). Two patients were infected with human immunodeficiency virus. We assessed the patterns of infection characteristic of each site and the antibiotic sensitivities of the isolates. Adequate documentation of M. gordonae infection (e.g., amount of growth per culture, detection of specific biochemical characteristics, and confirmation of the organism's identity by a reference center) was lacking in many reports. M. gordonae should not automatically be dismissed as a contaminant when isolated from clinical material. Additional studies are required to establish the extent of this organism's pathogenic role.