Treatment of cardiac nocardiosis in a post-renal transplant patient of systemic nocardiosis

• Main Authors: Muddassar Mahboob, Sana Hassan, Ashraf Ali Attia, Ebadur Rahman, Muhammad Shoaib Khan, Syed Rizwan Bokhari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tabriz University of Medical Sciences 2019-06-01
• Series: Journal of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Research
• Subjects: nocardia; opportunistic infections; cardiac nocardiosis
• Online Access: https://jcvtr.tbzmed.ac.ir/PDF/jcvtr-11-161.pdf

In general, nocardia infects immunosuppressed patients, however, sometimes it can also infect immunocompetent individuals. Nocardia infection can disseminate to any organ system of the body but the pulmonary system is the most commonly involved system. In some rare cases, the heart can also be involved and the resulting cardiac mycetoma can be treated successfully with antimicrobials without the need of surgery, unlike fungal cardiac mycetomas wherein surgery may be required in addition to antimicrobial therapy. We present an interesting case of post-renal transplant cardiac nocardiosis, which was treated successfully with a course of antibiotics.