S. aureus bacteremia with acute transverse myelitis case report: Utility of molecular techniques

Abstract

We report a rare case of bacteremia with concomitant acute transverse myelitis (ATM) without evidence of a primary infectious focus or secondary localization due to Staphylococcus aureus in a 60-year-old man admitted for hyperpyrexia, quadriplegia, and respiratory failure. Bacterial ATM is a rare clinical entity with confusing clinical presentation and challenging diagnosis; isolated bacterial infections of the spinal cord without secondary localization or contiguous foci are exceptionally rare, as is S. aureus as the cause of infection. In this case, a rapid etiologic diagnosis was made possible by close collaboration between clinicians, infectious disease specialists and clinical microbiologists combined with extended molecular testing on CSF guided by incoming results.

Keywords: Acute flaccid myelitis; Acute transverse myelitis; Infectious myelitis; Polymerase chain reaction (PCR); Staphylococcus aureus.