Necrotizing pneumonia caused by community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: an increasing cause of "mayhem in the lung".

Although long recognized as a nosocomial organism, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been noted to have an increasing incidence in both immunocompromised and otherwise healthy people in the community. Community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) is genetically distinct from hospital-acquired MRSA and frequently expresses the Panton-Valentine leukocidin toxin, which confers an aggressive necrotizing phenotype and is accompanied by a poor prognosis. We present a case of CA-MRSA pneumonia with the aim to alert the radiologist of the radiographic manifestations of this increasingly encountered and frequently fatal disease.