Nocardia is a significant opportunistic pathogen in patients with compromised immunity. The authors isolated N. asteroides from an abscess of the axilla and from respiratory specimens of a renal allograft patient with pneumonia. Direct smear of the sputum and bronchial washing specimens showed many branching, filamentous forms which were gram-positive and acid fast. Culture yielded slow growing small white colonies which became orange on further incubation. Aerial hyphae were produced. Identification of the species was based on typical cultural and biochemical tests. The isolate was susceptible to amikacin, minocycline and rifamipicin. The patient became afebrile after 8 weeks of treatment with cotrimoxazole and brief treatment with other antimicrobial agents.
Adult ; Human ; Kidney Transplantation* ; Lung Diseases/etiology* ; Male ; Nocardia Infections/etiology* ; Nocardia asteroides/isolation & purification

A 52 year-old, contact lens-wearing man presented with progressive right eye pain and redness for one month. He had been evaluated and treated for necrotizing scleritis by multiple eye care specialists prior to presentation. He underwent a complete systemic work-up for both autoimmune and infectious causes of scleritis, including a culture. The culture revealed heavy growth of Nocardia asteroides complexes. The patient was treated with topical amikacin and oral Bactrim. Following several weeks of antibiotic treatment, the patient's infection resolved completely, and his visual acuity returned to baseline status. Nocardia is a rare but potentially devastating cause of necrotizing scleritis that may affect contact lens wearers without an associated keratitis. Prompt recognition and early treatment with appropriate antimicrobial agents are critical to achieve a favorable outcome.
Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use ; Contact Lenses/*adverse effects/*microbiology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Nocardia Infections/*diagnosis/drug therapy ; Nocardia asteroides/*isolation & purification ; Scleritis/drug therapy/*microbiology

Cutaneous nocardiosis, which usually manifests in the form of pustules, abscesses, or subcutaneous nodules, is occasionally found in immunocompromised patients. A 59-yr-old Korean man with myasthenia gravis and thymoma developed nodular skin lesions on his trunk. Histopathologically, abscess formation with a dense infiltrate of neutrophils and many cytophagic histiocytes were observed. Numerous filamentous organisms, which turned out to be Nocardia asteroides by culture, were also found. After sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim therapy, all of the skin lesions rapidly decreased in size, with a marked diminution of the number of cytophagic histiocytes, and cleared up within four months. On reporting a case of cutaneous nocardiosis showing unusual histopathologic findings, we considered that reactive conditions should be included in the differential diagnosis of the cutaneous cytophagocytosis, and that nocardiosis could be one of the diseases showing reactive cytophagocytosis.
Anti-Bacterial Agents/therapeutic use ; Histiocytes/*immunology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Myasthenia Gravis/complications ; Neutrophils/*immunology ; Nocardia Infections/drug therapy/*immunology/microbiology/pathology ; Nocardia asteroides/drug effects/*immunology/isolation & purification ; Phagocytosis/*immunology ; Skin Diseases, Bacterial/drug therapy/*immunology/microbiology/pathology ; Thymoma/complications ; Thymus Neoplasms/complications ; Treatment Outcome ; Trimethoprim-Sulfamethoxazole Combination/therapeutic use