BACKGROUND: Enterohepatic Helicobacter-like organisms (HLO) have been recognized as causes of human infection since 1984, primarily as a cause of bacteremia and cellulitis in immunocompromised individuals, but the spectrum of illness due to HLO has expanded based on numerous reports from Japan. METHODS: We report 4 epidemiologically unrelated immunocompetent patients with HLO bacteremia diagnosed within a 2-year period. Three patients had cellulitis and 1 patient had unexplained fever. 16S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) sequence analysis of 2 isolates suggested that they were Helicobacter cinaedi, and whole-genome sequencing showed that they differed only slightly from reference strains. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that this syndrome is more common than reported, but it is easily overlooked because the skin lesions resemble streptococcal cellulitis and respond very rapidly to β-lactam antibiotics, and the organism is difficult to isolate from the blood. All HLO in our series were isolated from blood using the ESP system and were not detected in 2 other widely used commercial blood culture systems.
BACKGROUND: Enterohepatic Helicobacter-like organisms (HLO) have been recognized as causes of human infection since 1984, primarily as a cause of bacteremia and cellulitis in immunocompromised individuals, but the spectrum of illness due to HLO has expanded based on numerous reports from Japan. METHODS: We report 4 epidemiologically unrelated immunocompetent patients with HLO bacteremia diagnosed within a 2-year period. Three patients had cellulitis and 1 patient had unexplained fever. 16S ribosomal deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) sequence analysis of 2 isolates suggested that they were Helicobacter cinaedi, and whole-genome sequencing showed that they differed only slightly from reference strains. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that this syndrome is more common than reported, but it is easily overlooked because the skin lesions resemble streptococcal cellulitis and respond very rapidly to β-lactam antibiotics, and the organism is difficult to isolate from the blood. All HLO in our series were isolated from blood using the ESP system and were not detected in 2 other widely used commercial blood culture systems.
Authors: S Weir; B Cuccherini; A M Whitney; M L Ray; J P MacGregor; A Steigerwalt; M I Daneshvar; R Weyant; B Wray; J Steele; W Strober; V J Gill Journal: J Clin Microbiol Date: 1999-08 Impact factor: 5.948
Authors: F E Dewhirst; J G Fox; E N Mendes; B J Paster; C E Gates; C A Kirkbride; K A Eaton Journal: Int J Syst Evol Microbiol Date: 2000-09 Impact factor: 2.747
Authors: Z Shen; Y Feng; A B Rogers; B Rickman; M T Whary; S Xu; K M Clapp; S R Boutin; J G Fox Journal: Infect Immun Date: 2009-03-23 Impact factor: 3.441
Authors: Ramy K Aziz; Daniela Bartels; Aaron A Best; Matthew DeJongh; Terrence Disz; Robert A Edwards; Kevin Formsma; Svetlana Gerdes; Elizabeth M Glass; Michael Kubal; Folker Meyer; Gary J Olsen; Robert Olson; Andrei L Osterman; Ross A Overbeek; Leslie K McNeil; Daniel Paarmann; Tobias Paczian; Bruce Parrello; Gordon D Pusch; Claudia Reich; Rick Stevens; Olga Vassieva; Veronika Vonstein; Andreas Wilke; Olga Zagnitko Journal: BMC Genomics Date: 2008-02-08 Impact factor: 3.969