Four additional cases of Burkholderia gladioli infection with microbiolgical correlates and review

Abstract

Burkholderia gladoli has only recently been reported to be a human pathogen. Four cases of B. gladoli infection (including bactemeria, pneumonia, and cervical adenitis) in two adults and two young children are reported. Three of these four patients were severely immunocompromised. Commercial systems were frequently unable to identify this bacterium correctly. Antimicrobial susceptibility patterns indicated that B. gladoli strains were susceptible to complement-mediated lysis of pooled human serum, thus implying that healthy individuals should be immune to infection. These four cases together with three previously reported cases suggest that B. gladoli primarily causes disease in severely immunocompromised individuals. The lack of mortality associated with infection, coupled with susceptibility to serum and lack of recognizable virulence-associated factors, suggests that this species has a low pathogenic potential.