Community acquired bacteremia by Sphingomonas paucimobilis: Two rare case reports

Abstract

S.paucimobilis has a diverse nutritional substrate spectrum and found in both environmental and hospital settings. Sphingomonas paucimobilis is rarely isolated from clinical specimen. This low virulence organism since has been reported to cause a variety of diseases since 1979. It has been reported to be associated with both community acquired and nosocomial diseases including bacteremia, catheter related sepsis, diarrhoeal diseases, peritonitis, meningitis, cutaneous infections, endopthalmitis, visceral infections, urinary tract infections etc. We report two cases of community acquired primary bacteremia by Sphingomonas paucimobilis. One of the patients was 55 years old female who had gall bladder carcinoma and the other was a 2-year-old healthy male who had no history of any underlying disease. Both got admission in hospital with complaints of pyrexia. Blood culture yielded S.paucimobilis which was found to be sensitive to quinolones, chloramphenicol, carbapenems, aminoglycosides and beta lactams except penicillin and amoxicillin.