Mycetoma due to Nocardia Africana/Nova treated successfully with cotrimoxazole and moxifloxacin

Abstract

Nocardia africana is a recently identified organism and has rarely been reported to cause mycetoma. Here we report the case of a 40-year-old woman who presented with discharging sinuses and nodules for the past 7 years along with few discrete axillary lymph nodes. Cultures and Maldi-TOF MS (Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–time of flight mass spectrometry) method identified the causative organism as Nocardia africana/nova. The organism was acid-fast positive on modified Ziehl-Neelsen stain and Gram's stain revealed branched filamentous beaded gram-positive bacilli, while histopathology showed granulation tissue along with few ill-defined epithelioid cell granulomas, with giant cells. Based on the sensitivity report, the patient was started on tablet moxifloxacin and cotrimoxazole, and has shown considerable improvement at 2.5 months of follow-up.

Keywords

• cutaneous nocardiosis
• mycetoma
• nocardia africana/nova
• treatment