Patient-to-patient spread of a single strain of Corynebacterium striatum causing infections in a surgical intensive care unit

Abstract

Over a 12-month period, Corynebacterium striatum strains were isolated from clinical specimens from 14 patients admitted to a surgical intensive care unit. These isolates were identical by morphology and biotype and displayed the same antibiogram. Ten isolates were found to be the sole possible pathogen. These 10 isolates were from six patients, three of whom had signs of infection at the time of positive culture. Further typing was performed by random amplification of polymorphic DNA analysis, by which all strains were identical and were found to differ to various degrees from reference strains and from isolates found in clinical samples from other wards. In a case-control study the only independent risk factor for acquiring the strain was intubation for longer than 24 h (odds ratio, 20.09; 95% confidence interval, 2.29 to 176.09). The same strain was isolated from surfaces and from air sampled in the direct vicinity of infected patients but never from surfaces or air in other places of the ward. The strain was not isolated from the ventilators. The strain was cultured from the hands of personnel attending to infected patients, but no long-term carriers were found among members of the hospital personnel, suggesting transient carriage only. We conclude that C. striatum can cause serious nosocomial infections in surgical intensive care unit patients and may spread from patient to patient via the hands of attending personnel.

Epidemiological investigation of a nosocomial outbreak of multidrug-resistant Corynebacterium striatum at one Belgian university hospital

“…The healthcare staff in both units are strongly suspected to be the vector of cross-transmission of the C. striatum strain between patients. In a previous report, Brandenburg et al reported the 12-month persistence of a single C. striatum epidemic strain in patients in a surgical ICU, suggesting that asymptomatically colonized patients may constitute the main reservoir of C. striatum and that patient-to-patient transmission probably occurs via the hands of the personnel [7]. Our study hereby highlights the protracted and silencious pattern of a C. striatum outbreak.…”

“…following repeated exposure to broad-spectrum antibiotics, after the use of invasive medical procedures and in the presence of organic obstructive pathologies) [3][4][5]. Most reported C. striatum infections involved the respiratory tract and several outbreaks of nosocomial infections have been described [6][7][8][9].…”

Corynebacterium Species Rarely Cause Orthopedic Infections

“…C. striatum was found more frequently in orthopedic samples than in cultured blood samples (13.4% versus 2.9%) and accounted for three monomicrobial infections (two implant-associated infections and one case of septic arthritis). In the literature, C. striatum is described to be associated with foreign body-associated infections, infective endocarditis, pulmonary infections, septic arthritis, and ventilator tubes in hospital settings (12,22,23). C. jeikeium was recovered from 20% of our Corynebacterium-positive blood cultures but not from any of the orthopedic samples.…”

Coryneform Bacteria in Throat Cultures of Healthy Individuals

“…Such strains have also been observed by others and may prove to be a new species (1). The third surprise was that we did not isolate C. amycolatum and C. striatum, i.e., species isolated by others from sputa (2,15), albeit of predisposed and/or hospitalized patients. Among the more frequently reported corynebacteria, C. jeikeium was isolated from four individuals with no known predisposing condition.…”