Enterococcus avium Infection After Liver Transplantation in Vietnam: A Case Report

The infectious complications are the most common and can be life-threatening to liver transplant recipients, in particular, within the first month after transplantation. Early diagnosis of these severe complications and accurate detection of causative etiologies are crucial for the choice of therapeutic strategies and management of liver transplants.

We present a case report of a patient with a history of primary sclerosing cholangitis who underwent a liver transplantation (LT) from a living donor. The postoperative care was complicated with the hepatic artery thrombosis on day 16 and then the presence of sepsis on day 22 and intra-abdominal abscess on day 30, caused by Enterococcus avium (E. avium). The patient was treated with stent placement for hepatic artery thrombosis, percutaneous drainage of the abscess, and used an intensive intravenous antibiotic regimen with a combination of fosfomycin and vancomycin for a duration of 14 days. After the interventional procedure, the clinical examination and laboratory findings became normal and the patient left the hospital on day 46 in good general condition.

We diagnosed early and well-recognized complications during the perioperative care to make a prompt therapeutic approach with conservative treatment to rescue the patient without requiring urgent surgery and retransplantation.