[Non-clostridial gas-producing brain abscess in a brain death patient--report of a case]

A 46 year old female was admitted to our emergency room because of cardiopulmonary arrest by hanging. After ten minutes cardiopulmonary resuscitation, she was resuscitated but her consciousness did'nt recover. CT-scans on the day of admission showed no abnormalities but on the second hospital day it showed symmetrical low density areas within the basal ganglia, the thalamus, the hippocampus, and the occipital lobe. There were marked enhanced effect in cerebral sulci due to cytotoxic edema of hypoxic encephalopathy. She was comatose for a week, her pupils were dilated, light reflex and other brain stem reflex were absent. CT-scans on the sixth hospital day showed marked brain swelling with disappearance of the ventricular systems (so called brain tamponade). Brain death was confirmed on the basis of Japanese Criteria on the seventh and tenth day of admission. She had been suffering from pneumonia and urinary tract infection with an elevation of temperature since the fourth hospital day. We detected Enterobacter Cloacae (E. Cloacae), Klebsiella Oxytoca from the cultures of sputum and urine. On the tenth hospital day her temperature was running up to 39.4 degrees C and blood count revealed a peripheral blood leucocytosis of 40,300/mm3 with a shift to the left. E. Cloacae was also detected from the cultures of blood. Skull roentgenogram showed multiple gas collections in the ventricular systems. CT-scans on the fourteenth hospital day showed multiple gas-containing brain abscess. The etiology of this infection was considered due to septicemia of E. Cloacae. She died from acute renal failure on the fifteenth hospital day. Consent for autopsy was not accepted.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)