Clostridium Tetani Bacteremia From a Suspected Cutaneous Source

David Kazadi; Diana Zychowski; Caleb Skipper; Peter Teravskis; Glen T Hansen; Eloy E Ordaya

doi:10.7759/cureus.22848

Clostridium Tetani Bacteremia From a Suspected Cutaneous Source

Cureus. 2022 Mar 4;14(3):e22848. doi: 10.7759/cureus.22848. eCollection 2022 Mar.

Authors

David Kazadi¹, Diana Zychowski², Caleb Skipper³, Peter Teravskis³, Glen T Hansen⁴, Eloy E Ordaya⁵

Affiliations

¹ Internal Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
² Infectious Diseases, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA.
³ Infectious Diseases, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
⁴ Microbiology and Molecular Diagnostics, Hennepin Healthcare, Minneapolis, USA.
⁵ Infectious Diseases, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, USA.

Abstract

Bacteremia is a rare complication of Clostridium tetani infection. To our knowledge, there are only two case reports to date of C. tetani bacteremia, both hypothesized to be secondary to a gastrointestinal source. Herein, we report a case of an elderly man with genome sequence-proven C. tetani bacteremia from a possible cutaneous source without neuromuscular symptoms.

Keywords: 16s rrna gene sequencing; bacteremia; cellulitis; clostridium tetani; tetanus.

Publication types

Case Reports

Grants and funding

D43 TW009345/TW/FIC NIH HHS/United States