Neisseria meningitidis as a cause of facial cellulitis.

A 68-year-old man presented with facial cellulitis and found to have Neisseria meningitidis bacteraemia with no evidence of infection outside of the facial soft tissue. He was treated with a course of intravenous ceftriaxone and transitioned to oral amoxicillin on discharge with significant improvement of his symptoms. N meningitidis is best recognised as a causal agent of bacterial meningitis. To our knowledge N meningitidis cellulitis has only been described in 12 other cases. In this case series we describe and summarise our case, along with the 12 cases already reported in the literature. We report this case series to highlight the importance of recognising N meningitidis in the differential in patients presenting with acute skin and soft tissue infections especially involving the periorbital, head and neck regions.