Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus avium Isolated from the Wound of a Patient with Diabetes Mellitus

Young Jin Ko; Hee Sook Shim; Hee-Won Moon; Mina Hur; Yeo-Min Yun

doi:10.3343/lmo.2013.3.2.115

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Ko, Shim, Moon, Hur, and Yun: Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus avium Isolated from the Wound of a Patient with Diabetes Mellitus

Case Report

Clinical Microbiology

Laboratory Medicine Online

Laboratory Medicine Online 2013; 3(2): 115-118.

Published online: 1 April 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3343/lmo.2013.3.2.115

Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus avium Isolated from the Wound of a Patient with Diabetes Mellitus

Young Jin Ko, M.D., Hee Sook Shim, M.D., Hee-Won Moon, M.D., Mina Hur, M.D., Yeo-Min Yun, M.D.

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Konkuk University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Hee-Won Moon, M.D. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Konkuk University Medical Center, 120-1 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 143-729, Korea. Tel: +82-2-2030-5583, Fax: +82-2-2030-5587, hannasis@kuh.ac.kr

Received 16 August 2012 Revised 18 September 2012 Accepted 18 September 2012

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Enterococcus avium, very commonly found in birds, is rarely reported as a human pathogen. Although several studies have focused on cases of infection with E. avium, little is known about the clinical features of E. avium infection and the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of E. avium. We isolated vanA-producing vancomycin-resistant E. avium from specimen obtained from the wound of a patient with diabetes mellitus. Vancomycin-resistant E. avium is rarely observed among the vancomycin-resistant enterococci colonizing the intestine, and there are very few reports of vancomycin-resistant E. avium isolated from clinical specimens. Here we confirmed that the clinical isolate was E. avium on the basis of phenotypic characterization and the results of 16S rRNA sequence analysis.

Keywords: Enterococcus avium, Vancomycin resistance, Wound infection

Figures and Tables

Fig. 1

Grayish, medium-sized colonies of Enterococcus avium on blood agar plate showing alpha hemolysis.

Notes

This article is available from http://www.labmedonline.org

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