Community-acquired Tsukamurella pneumonia in a young immunocompetent adult: a case misdiagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis and literature review

ABSTRACT

This report describes a case of Tsukamurella pneumonia in a 24-year-old immunocompetent woman. The patient was diagnosed as having pulmonary tuberculosis and was treated for nearly 9 months. The correct diagnosis was suspected only when the results of mycobacteria nucleic acid amplification tests on cultural colonies were negative. Tsukamurella was identified from the patient’s sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid by using 16S rRNA sequence analysis. Here, the clinical presentation, diagnosis, and treatment strategies of Tsukamurella pneumonia are discussed, along with a literature review. Tsukamurella pneumonia may be highly underdiagnosed owing to its similarity with pulmonary tuberculosis and the habitual thinking of doctors in countries with a high tuberculosis burden. Tsukamurella should be carefully considered in the etiology of tuberculosis-like lung diseases.

KEYWORDS:

• Pulmonary tuberculosis
• pneumonia
• Tsukamurells
• mycobacteria

Ethical statement

The research was conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Professor Yingmei Fu (Haerbin Medical University) for kindly providing us with needed literatures and valuable advice and Professor XiaoXing Cheng for his general supervision.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant number 81071319] and National Science & Technology Major Project for Infectious Diseases [Grant number #2013ZX10003006-003-001].