Purulent pericarditis and cardiac tamponade caused by nocardia farcinica in a nephrotic syndrome patient

Abstract

Nocardiosis is an uncommon infection that occurs primarily in immunocompromised patients. We herein report an extremely rare case of Nocardia farcinica (N. farcinica) pericarditis. A 53-year-old man with neph-rotic syndrome that required chronic corticosteroid therapy presented with pleuritic chest pain and cardiac tamponade. Pericardiocentesis revealed purulent pericardial effusion and a bacteriological examination showed the characteristic branching filamentous bacteria identified as N. farcinica. Aggressive surgical drainage and a trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole based regimen resulted in clinical improvement. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of N. farcinica pericarditis in Thailand. © 2013 The Japanese Society of Internal Medicine.