Systemic cat scratch disease: report of 23 patients with prolonged or recurrent severe bacterial infection

Over a seven-year period, we identified 23 patients who had prolonged or recurrent, severe, systemic, cat-scratch disease (CSD). Compared with the usual, benign course in 1,038 patients with typical CSD, the course in these 23 patients included prolonged (two or more weeks) morbidity (fever, malaise, fatigue, myalgia, arthralgia, skin eruptions, weight loss, and splenomegaly). Five patients with systemic CSD had either neuroretinitis, pleurisy, arthralgia or arthritis, splenic abscesses, and mediastinal masses or enlarged nodes of the head of the pancreas. Recurrent CSD in two of three adults was confirmed by finding typical CSD bacilli in lymph nodes removed during separate episodes. The majority of patients were adult males, and all patients recovered completely without sequelae. Histopathologic studies of five skin and 18 lymph node biopsy specimens were diagnostic. CSD bacilli were detected in lymph nodes from 15 patients and in the primary skin lesions of four patients. CSD bacilli were found in both skin and lymph nodes of three patients.