Wei Zheng, Jianhua Liu, Haixia Bai, Xin Xu, Lina Wu, Xiaosong Qin

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Liaoning Clinical Research Center for Laboratory Medicine, Shengyang, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Xiaosong Qin, Email qinxs@sj-hospital.org

Background: Gordonia terrae is an opportunistic pathogen that rarely causes clinical infections. Here, we first report a case of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in patients with hepatitis C cirrhosis caused by Gordonia terrea.
Case Presentation: A 71-year-old male patient was diagnosed with spontaneous bacteria peritonitis secondary to hepatitis C cirrhosis. The result of bacterial culture in ascites was positive, and the pathogenic bacteria was preliminarily identified as the Gordonia genus by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization–time of flight mass spectrometry. After 16S rRNA sequencing analysis, it was determined to be the Gordonia terrea. Symptoms relieved after treatment with ceftazidime.
Conclusion: This case indicates that the clinical infections caused by Gordonia terrea should be brought to the forefront. Accurate and rapid bacterial identification results are highly beneficial to the diagnosis and therapeutic regime.

Keywords: spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, rare pathogen, Gordonia terrae, identification