Streptococcus pluranimalium infective endocarditis and brain abscess

Abstract

Infective endocarditis is an infection of the endocardium of the heart typically seen in individuals with underlying risk factors. We report a rare case of Streptococcus pluranimalium bacteremia causing infective endocarditis and brain abscess. Only 3 cases were reported in the literature on infective endocarditis in patients secondary to S. pluranimalium .

Streptococcus Pluranimalium Infective Endocarditis Complicated by New Onset Heart Failure

“…An alternative association may be colonization of the human oral cavity with S. pluranimalium that then results in bacteremia and disseminated disease when the physical or immunologic defenses become compromised. This hypothesis may be supported by the isolation of S. pluranimalium from gingival plaque following tooth extraction in healthy people [27] and the onset of S. pluranimalium-associated disease following dental procedures [22] and in patients with evidence of poor dental hygiene in this report and others [11,22,18]. With a high incidence of viridans streptococci causing endocarditis and a degree of morphological and biochemical similarity between viridans streptococci and S. pluranimalium, it is intriguing to consider whether some cases of endocarditis attributed to viridans streptococci may in fact be due to S. pluranimalium.…”

“…In the past five years, a new bacterium has been implicated in at least four cases of IE [8][9][10][11]. This bacterium, Streptococcus pluranimalium, was first isolated in 1999 from a case of bovine mastitis, but has been isolated from a number of other agricultural and domesticated animals including chickens, goats, cats, canaries, sheep, Nile tilapia, a pheasant, and an alpaca [12][13][14].…”

“…cervix, vagina, lung, tonsils), avian crop, and from milk of infected dairy animals [12,15]. In addition to IE, S. pluranimalium has been reported as the causal agent in three cases of a brain abscess including one patient whose primary presentation was IE [11,16,17], one case of subdural empyema [18], and five cases of sepsis [19][20][21][22][23] with one case including septic arthritis [21], one case developing sepsis following a dental procedure [22], and a third case initially presenting as pneumonia with S. pluranimalium isolated from blood cultures [23]. This report now describes a fifth case of IE with S. pluranimalium associated bacteremia and is the first report of new onset heart failure as a complication of this infection.…”

Coxiella Endocarditis as the Cause of Recurrent Fever and Brain Abscess in a Patient with Complex Congenital Heart Disease: A Case Report and Literature Review

“…More specifically, Q fever IE has been reported in patients with transposition of the great vessels [ 19 ], truncus arteriosus and tetralogy of Fallot [ 20 ], VSD [ 21 , 22 ], dextrocardia [ 23 ], cactus aorta [ 24 ], and coarctation of the aorta [ 25 ]. Moreover, although several cases of brain abscess secondary to IE have been published to date [ 26 – 28 ], the present report constitutes the first case of brain abscess attributed to Coxiella burnetii BCNIE.…”

Streptococcus pluranimalium meningoencephalitis in a horse

“…11 S. pluranimalium was first reported in humans as a causative agent of brain abscesses in a child with congenital cyanotic heart disease who had a history of contact with chickens 4 d prior to admission. 11 Several case reports have also described the contributory potential of this bacteria to human brain abscesses, 2 and S. pluranimalium has been isolated from human patients with periodontitis and endocarditis. 2,11…”