Available online 31 December 2022, 102689

Anaerobiospirillum succiniciproducens is a rare anaerobic pathogen that is implicated in sporadic cases of bacteremia and diarrhea, usually in immunocompromised patients. We describe a case of prosthetic joint infection in a 71 year old male who presented with right hip pain. Anaerobic cultures from tissue specimen grew a spiral-shaped gram-negative rod, identified as A. succiniciproducens by 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The patient was treated successfully with IV cefoxitin for 6 weeks. To our knowledge this is only the third reported case of prosthetic joint infection due to A. succiniciproducens.

Anaerobiospirillum succiniciproducens is an anaerobic organism that was first isolated from throat and feces of beagle dogs in 1976 [1]. The organism is part of the normal gastrointestinal microbiota in some cats and dogs, but not humans [2,3]. Human infection occurs rarely, especially in the immunocompromised host or patients with co-morbid conditions, and can cause diarrhea, bacteremia and septicemia [4,5].

We report a case of A. succiniciproducens prosthetic joint infection in a patient with several co-morbidities.

A 71-year-old male with past medical history of type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, hemochromatosis, asthma and obstructive sleep apnea, presented with progressively worsening right hip pain, fever, chills, decreased appetite and night sweats for 2 months. Past surgical history includes total right hip replacement in 2008 and lithotripsy of a right ureteral stone in 2009. Patient is a retired farmer and lives with his spouse in the mid Michigan area. He has two dogs and a

A. succiniciproducens, a rare cause of bacteremia and diarrhea in humans, is an obligate anaerobic gram negative bacillus with bipolar tufts of flagella. The organism has been recovered from the mouth and feces of cats and dogs [2,3]. Morphologically it is a spiral shaped bacteria and may be confused with other curved gram negative rods like Campylobacter spp. and certain genera of spirochetes like Leptospira spp. [7].

Prosthetic joint infection due to A. succiniciproducens is rare and, to this

Verbal informed consent for publication of this case report was obtained from the patient.

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.