RESEARCH ARTICLE
Aerococcus christensenii as Part of Severe Polymicrobial Chorioamnionitis in a Pregnant Woman
Catrine Carlstein1, Lillian Marie Søes2, Jens Jørgen Christensen2, *
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
First Page: 27
Last Page: 31
Publisher ID: TOMICROJ-10-27
DOI: 10.2174/1874285801610010027
Article History:
Received Date: 20/11/2014Revision Received Date: 3/1/2015
Acceptance Date: 23/2/2015
Electronic publication date: 10/3/2016
Collection year: 2016

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Chorioamnionitis is a potentially life threatening infection of the fetal membranes, commonly caused by ascending bacteria from the vagina and cervix. In our case, a healthy nullipara with a term pregnancy presented clinical signs of infection after induced labour with an intracervical balloon. Thick green and foul smelling amniotic fluid was observed and culture showed massive growth of Aerococcus christensenii, a facultative anaerob species found in the human vagina, previously only rarely alleged to cause invasive infection. Additional testing with 16S rRNA gene analysis also identified the presence of Gemella asaccharolytica, Snethia sanguinegens, Parvimonas micra and Streptobacillus moniliformis. The patient was treated with cefuroxime and metronidazole and recovered quickly. The newborn showed no signs of infection. This case points at the possible role of these pathogens in female genital tract infections. The case also underlines the importance of the combination of culture and culture independent diagnostic approaches to reveal possible polymicrobial natures of selected infections, in this case chorioamnionitis.