Pseudomonas testosteroni infections: eighteen recent cases and a review of the literature.

Pseudomonas testosteroni has been largely overlooked as a potential pathogen in humans. Ten cases of infection due to P. testosteroni were identified at a single metropolitan hospital in Texas during a three-year period. The organism was most often found in association with anatomic abnormalities of the gastrointestinal tract (six of 10 cases); perforation of the appendix was the commonest abnormality (five cases). The infections were more often polymicrobial (seven cases) than monomicrobial (three cases) and usually involved other organisms that, like P. testosteroni, are of colonic origin. Eight additional cases of infection involving P. testosteroni were reported by other hospitals in Texas during the same period. The organism was isolated from the peritoneal cavity in five of these cases. The results of these surveys suggest that infections of humans with P. testosteroni, while not common, are not as rare as might be predicted on the basis of the number of cases reported in the literature.