Abstract
Prior studies suggest that Corynebacterium jeikeium bacteremia in immunocompromised patients results in frequent morbidity that may be decreased by prompt removal of the indwelling catheter. To summarize recent experience, charts of 53 bone marrow transplant recipients with Hickman catheters and C. jeikeium bacteremia were reviewed. Forty-one patients were treated with vancomycin without catheter removal and 10 patients underwent catheter removal with subsequent vancomycin therapy. No patient in either group died with C. jeikeium bacteremia as the proximate cause. Salvage of the intravascular catheter was successful in 38 of 41 (93%) attempts. Three patients (7%) in the catheter-salvage group and one patient (10%) in the catheter-removal group experienced recurrent bacteremia. In both catheter-salvage and catheter-removal groups, median time to negative blood culture was 2 days. Thus, time to clearance of bacteremia and patient clinical outcome did not differ between treatment groups. In many patients with Hickman catheters, C. jeikeium bacteremia may be treated successfully with vancomycin and without removal of the catheter. Bone Marrow Transplantation (2001) 27, 445–449.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Lawrence Corey, Ajit Limaye, Thomas Novicki, and Walter Stamm for their guidance in the preparation of manuscript. We would like to thank Christopher Dorling for his assistance in retrieving information from the patient database, and Caroline McKallor and Madeline Keston for their expertise with the microbiology database. We are also grateful to Bruce Ulness for the information he provided from the microbiology laboratory. This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (No. PO1-AI-33118); Center for AIDS Research (NIAID AI27757); University of Washington STD Cooperative Research Center (NIAID AI31448). Chia Wang was a fellow in the UW STD/AIDS Postdoctoral and Predoctoral Research Training Program (NIAIDAI07140).
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Wang, C., Mattson, D. & Wald, A. Corynebacterium jeikeium bacteremia in bone marrow transplant patients with Hickman catheters. Bone Marrow Transplant 27, 445–449 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1702808
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1702808
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