Vertebral Osteomyelitis or Infected Abdominal Aortic Endograft? A Rare Case of Q Fever

Abstract

Coxiella burnetii is the etiological agent of Q fever, a zoonosis. Vascular infections are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Osteoarticular Q fever infections are rare. We describe a case of vertebral osteomyelitis with associated infection of an abdominal aortic endograft, caused by C. burnetii. Most probably, an initial pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis extended locally to the endograft. Treatment consisted of antibiotic therapy and surgical resection of the infected aortic endograft and in situ reconstruction with autogenous superficial femoral vein grafts.

Chronic Q fever presenting as bilateral extensor tenosynovitis: a case report and review of the literature

“…Moreover, Q fever may present as an asymptomatic disease or with limited systemic symptoms as in the present case (Francis et al, 2016). To our knowledge, there have been 55 reports of Q fever with osteoarticular involvement reported in the literature, including the present case (Table 1) (O'Donnell et al, 2007;Merhej et al, 2012;Galy et al, 2016;Stokes et al, 2016;Virk et al, 2017;Meriglier et al, 2018;Lundy et al, 2019;Dabaja-Younis et al, 2020;Waelbers et al, 2020;Dorfman et al, 2021;McKew and Gottlieb, 2021;Sim et al, 2021). Most cases presented as osteomyelitis or spondylodiscitis.…”