A Case of Wound Infection with Providencia rettgeri and Coincident Gout in a Patient from Guam.

Providencia rettgeri (P. rettgeri) is a ubiquitous organism that is infrequently associated with human disease. Here we report the isolation of this organism from a polymicrobial wound infection resulting from ruptured tophi on a 54-year-old male patient from Guam. We describe the identification and confirmation of this organism, and propose metabolic synergy as a possible mechanism of pathogenesis. To our knowledge, this is the first published report of a wound infection colonized by P. rettgeri from Guam, and the first report to speculate upon the role of bacterial synergy in P. rettgeri pathogenesis.