Successful treatment of Nocardia actinomycetoma with meropenem and amikacin combination therapy

Isolated Nocardiosis, an Unrecognized Primary Immunodeficiency?

Nocardiosis is an infectious disease caused by the gram-positive bacterium Nocardia spp. Although it is commonly accepted that exposure to Nocardia is almost universal, only a small fraction of exposed individuals develop the disease, while the vast majority remain healthy. Nocardiosis has been described as an "opportunistic" disease of immunocompromised patients, suggesting that exposure to the pathogen is necessary, but a host predisposition is also required. Interestingly, increasing numbers of nocardiosis cases in individuals without any detected risk factors, i.e., without overt immunodeficiency, are being reported. Furthermore, a growing body of evidence have shown that selective susceptibility to a specific pathogen can be caused by a primary immunodeficiency (PID). This raises the question of whether an undiagnosed PID may cause nocardiosis affecting otherwise healthy individuals. This review summarizes the specific clinical and microbiological characteristics of patients with isolated nocardiosis published during the past 30 years. Furthermore, it gives an overview of the known human immune mechanisms to fend off Nocardia spp. obtained from the study of PIDs and patients under immunomodulatory therapies.

Successful Treatment of Recalcitrant Actinomycetoma of Gluteal Area with Combined Medical Treatment and Surgical Excision with Graft Reconstruction

Mycetoma, formerly known as Madura foot, is a chronic, localized, gradually increasing in size, granulomatous exogenous infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue with risks of bone and visceral involvement. It is unevenly found worldwide but it is endemic in tropical and subtropical countries. Two groups of mycetoma exist with similar clinical presentation; eumycetoma due to true fungi, and actinomycetoma due to aerobic bacteria from actinomycomycetes species. Mycetoma is difficult to treat and can lead to serious sequelae including disability, deformity and even death, so early diagnosis and treatment can elicit good results. The diagnosis is made based on a clinical picture of a triad of painless tumefaction, draining sinuses and granules of the causative micro-organism along with direct microscopic examination and histological study. It is very important to distinguish between actinomycetoma and eumycetoma for selecting the therapy. Actinomycetomas generally respond well to antimicrobials compared with eumycetomas, which respond poorly and need a combination of medical and surgical therapy. Bone involvement makes treatment more difficult, keeping surgical amputation as the only choice of treatment. Despite the possibility of a cure with medical treatment alone, treatment failure may occur even with long-term therapy, which necessitates adding surgical intervention to achieve cure. We report a case of gluteal actinomycetoma in an Omani man, treated successfully by combined medical treatment and surgical excision with graft reconstruction after failure of different regimens of antimicrobials.