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Clostridium septicum infection in a young pregnant patient

Rachel E McDonald1, Shiraz Moola

  • 1Department of Sydney Medical Program, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. rmcd6966@uni.sydney.edu.au

BMJ Case Reports
|June 8, 2012
PubMed

This report describes a young pregnant woman who presented to a rural emergency department with vaginal bleeding at 7 weeks of gestation. Initially, the patient was stable; however, within 8 h the patient deteriorated into fulminant septic shock. She required aggressive resuscitation and surgical management of a septic abortion. The patient's condition improved rapidly following surgical evacuation of the uterus with dilatation and curettage. She has had no long-term sequelae. Blood and tissue cultures returned positive for Clostridium septicum. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only reported case of survival from C septicum infection in a pregnant woman and highlights the importance of improved awareness and management of such infections by the medical community so that future cases can achieve similarly successful outcomes.

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