[A rare cause of pneumonia: Shewanella putrefaciens]

We read with interestingly the paper named "A Rare Cause of Pneumonia: Shewanella putrefaciens" presented by Durdu et al. published in Mikrobiyol Bul 2012; 46(1): 117-21. S.putrefaciens is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic and non-fermentative rod that rarely causes infections in humans. First, the authors reported that antibotic sensitivity tests of S.putrefaciens in the presented case were performed by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method. However, there is no recommendation about the antibiotic susceptibility testing by disc diffusion test for this bacteria in Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI), European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST), and British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) guidelines. According to CLSI criteria, antibiotic susceptibility tests for S.putrefaciens should be done by a method which detects minimal inhibitory concentration. Second, this paper reported that S.putrefaciens was sensitive to third generation cephalosporins and penicillins. Besides, the authors suggested that susceptibility of these bacteria to these antibiotics was helpful for the differential diagnosis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and S.putrefaciens. However, in the literature, S.putrefaciens had been reported as resistant to penicillin. We thought that these additional information would be helpful in the future studies related to S.putrefaciens.