PMID- 30410833
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
LR  - 20200930
IS  - 2168-8184 (Print)
IS  - 2168-8184 (Electronic)
IS  - 2168-8184 (Linking)
VI  - 10
IP  - 8
DP  - 2018 Aug 29
TI  - Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium Empyema in an Asplenic Patient.
PG  - e3227
LID - 10.7759/cureus.3227 [doi]
LID - e3227
AB  - Enterococcal empyema is a rare complication of pneumonia. We report the case of a 
      67-year-old asplenic man with pneumonia complicated by respiratory failure and 
      empyema requiring decortication and prolonged chest tube drainage. Cultures of 
      the empyema were initially negative, but later grew vancomycin-resistant 
      Enterococcus faecium (VRE), which was successfully treated with linezolid. To our 
      knowledge, this is only the second reported case of an empyema caused by VRE that 
      was not associated with an intra-abdominal infection. We suspect superinfection 
      due to airway or chest tube contamination as the most likely mechanism of 
      infection. Physicians should consider multi-drug resistant organisms such as VRE 
      in patients with empyema that fail to resolve with chest tube drainage and 
      broad-spectrum antibiotics.
FAU - Cotton, Matthew J
AU  - Cotton MJ
AD  - Internal Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, 
      USA.
FAU - Packer, Clifford D
AU  - Packer CD
AD  - Internal Medicine, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, 
      USA.
LA  - eng
PT  - Case Reports
DEP - 20180829
PL  - United States
TA  - Cureus
JT  - Cureus
JID - 101596737
PMC - PMC6207496
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - antimicrobials
OT  - antimicrobrial resistance
OT  - asplenia
OT  - clinical microbiology
OT  - empyema
OT  - enterococci
OT  - enterocococcus faecium
OT  - infectious diseases
OT  - vacomyocin resistant enterococcus faecium
OT  - vre
COIS- The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2018/11/10 06:00
MHDA- 2018/11/10 06:01
PMCR- 2018/08/29
CRDT- 2018/11/10 06:00
PHST- 2018/11/10 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2018/11/10 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2018/11/10 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2018/08/29 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 10.7759/cureus.3227 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Cureus. 2018 Aug 29;10(8):e3227. doi: 10.7759/cureus.3227.