Rothia mucilaginosa bacteremia: A 10‐year experience of a pediatric tertiary care cancer center

Abstract

Rothia mucilaginosa is part of the oral and upper respiratory tract flora. Usually, this gram‐positive coccus is not pathogenic; however, in the setting of immunosuppressed hosts, it can cause life‐threatening infections as an opportunistic pathogen. Among a cohort of 1511 hematologic‐oncologic patients at a pediatric tertiary care cancer center, we identified five cancer patients (0.35%) within a period of 10 years having a proven Rothia mucilaginosa bacteremia (1 culture positive: n = 3/5; > 1 culture positive: n = 2/5). With prompt and adequate antibiotic treatment, infection resolved rapidly before recovery of neutrophils and without any sequelae, suggesting that Rothia mucilaginosa bacteremia without organ involvement is not exceptionally problematic in pediatric cancer patients.

Synanthropic spiders, including the global invasive noble false widow Steatoda nobilis, are reservoirs for medically important and antibiotic resistant bacteria

“…It is commonly associated with teeth and gum disease, but is now considered an emerging opportunistic pathogen, especially in immunocompromised patients associated with endocarditis, pneumonia, arthritis, meningitis, skin and soft-tissue infections, prosthetic joint infections, and endophthalmitis. For example, it was isolated from five cancer patients who developed bacteraemia 69,70 .…”

Epidemiology of Infections With Rothia Species in an Academic Medical Center

“…Optimal treatment regimens for Rothia species have not been fully established. 1,2,5 In our review, only 3 isolates of each were unable to support growth for susceptibility testing. Given the low frequency of susceptibility to penicillin and very limited susceptibility analysis with cephalosporins, vancomycin must remain the empirical drug of choice for Rothia infections at our institution.…”

Infection or Contamination with Rothia, Kocuria, Arthrobacter and Pseudoglutamicibacter— a Retrospective Observational Study of Non- Micrococcus Micrococcaceae in the Clinic

“…While previous case reports have identified single cases of infection with Kocuria and Arthrobacter , this study, to our knowledge, represents the first systematic effort to describe what characterizes infection and contamination with these bacteria. Bacteremia with Rothia has been described in a case series ( 26 ), but this is, to our knowledge, the largest case series to date and the first to describe invasive infections outside the bloodstream. None of the patients with findings of Pseudoglutamicibacter from cultures turned out to have a true infection, but since this study only covered six cases, it is difficult to draw any conclusions about whether they can cause infections or not.…”