[Group JK (Corynebacterium jeikeium sp. nov.) isolated from Japanese skin flora]

In many parts of the world, the emergence of multiple antibiotic resistant Group JK has been recognized as an important cause of nosocomial infection in immunosuppressed and neutropenic patients. Group JK infections have not been reported from Japan. We studied 20 Japanese who had recently come to the United States and recovered Group JK from 7 of 20. These results suggest that Group JK may be prevalent in Japanese. Previous failure to identify these organisms may reflect their poor growth on agar not supplemented with lipid and their resemblance to bacteria considered to be commensals and non-pathogenic.