title: First Report of Clostridium lavalense Isolated in Human Blood Cultures.
abstract: An 88-year-old man was admitted to the hospital with worsening malaise, fever, and weakness. Anaerobic blood culture bottles revealed the presence of an anaerobic, Gram-positive sporulated bacillus. Empirical antibiotherapy with intravenous piperacillin-tazobactam was initiated. The patient defervesced after four days and was switched to oral amoxicillin on his 6th day of antibiotic therapy and later discharged from the hospital. Four months later, he had recovered. The bacterium was initially identified as Clostridium butyricum using anaerobic manual identification panel. 16S rRNA gene sequence and phylogenetic analysis showed the bacterium to be Clostridium lavalense, a recently described species with no previously published case of isolation in human diagnostic samples so far. This is the first report of Clostridium lavalense isolation from human blood cultures. Further studies are needed in order to elucidate the role of Clostridium lavalense in human disease and its virulence factors.
authors.affiliation: Service de Microbiologie Médicale et Maladies Infectieuses, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont, Moncton, NB, Canada E1C 2Z3.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1771-6641
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Garceau
authors.affiliation: Service de Microbiologie Médicale et Maladies Infectieuses, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont, Moncton, NB, Canada E1C 2Z3.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bourque
authors.affiliation: Service de Microbiologie Médicale et Maladies Infectieuses, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont, Moncton, NB, Canada E1C 2Z3.
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Thibault
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Santé Publique du Québec, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R5.
authors.forename: Jean-Charles
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Côté
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Santé Publique du Québec, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R5; Centre de Recherche en Infectiologie de l'Université Laval, Ville de Québec, QC, Canada G1V 4G2.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-0705-3036
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Longtin
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Santé Publique du Québec, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, QC, Canada H9X 3R5.
authors.forename: Marc-Christian
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Domingo