Cureus | Community-acquired pneumonia due to Legionella pneumophila, the utility of PCR, and a review of the antibiotics used
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Community-acquired pneumonia due to Legionella pneumophila, the utility of PCR, and a review of the antibiotics used

Paul Zarogoulidis, Ioanna Alexandropoulou, Gioulia Romanidou, Theocharis G Konstasntinidis, Eirini Terzi, S Saridou, Athanasios Stefanis, Kostas Zarogoulidis, TC Constantinidis

Published:

DOI: 10.2147/IJGM.S15654

License: © 2011 Zarogoulidis et al, publisher and licensee Dove Medical Press Ltd.This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

IntroductionThere are at least 40 types of Legionella bacteria, half of which are capable of producing disease in humans. The Legionella pneumophila bacterium, the root cause of Legionnaires’ disease, causes 90% of legionellosis cases.Case presentationWe describe the case of a 60-year-old woman with a history of diabetes mellitus and arterial hypertension who was admitted to our hospital with fever and symptoms of respiratory infection, diarrhea, and acute renal failure. We used real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect L. pneumophila DNA in peripheral blood and serum samples and urine antigen from a patient with pneumonia. Legionella DNA was detected in all two sample species when first collected.ConclusionSince Legionella is a cause of 2% to 15% of all community-acquired pneumonias that require hospitalization, legionellosis should be taken into account in an atypical pulmonary infection and not be forgotten. Moreover, real-time PCR should be considered a useful diagnostic method.


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Scholarly Impact Quotient™ (SIQ™)

Scholarly Impact Quotient™ (SIQ™) is our unique post-publication peer review rating process. SIQ™ assesses article importance and quality by embracing the collective intelligence of the Cureus community-at-large. All registered users are invited to contribute to the SIQ™ of any published article. (Authors cannot rate their own articles.)

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