[Fatal sepsis due to an emerging bacteria: Arcanobacterium hemolyticum]

Arcanobacterium hemolyticum (A.haemolyticum) is a gram-positive bacillus. Man is the primary environmental reservoir. It is essentially an opportunistic pathogen in immunocompromised patients and may be responsible for infections of the skin and pharynx in healthy subjects, especially in children and adolescents. It can cause superinfections of chronic ulcers, but occasionally it causes invasive infections. Its isolation from culture samples is always difficult because it simulates many bacteria to which it is often associated in pathological products. There are not recommendations concerning the study of its antibiotics sensitivity. Arcanobacterium Bacteremia are rare to our knowledge, only sixteen case reports have been described in the literature. We here report another case of a patient with A.haemolyticum bacteremia secondary to superinfection of gluteal eschars.