Clinical characteristics of 53 cases of Nocardia infection

Objective To discuss the clinical manifestations, laboratory examination and imageological characteristics, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of nocardiosis. Methods Retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 53 cases of Nocardia infection reported in national medical database from 1998-2013. The study group included nocardiosis patients with disease histories and the control group included the nocardiosis patients who were previously healthy, their clinical manifestations, imageological characteristics and treatment outcomes were compared. Results Among the 53 nocardiosis cases, 31 were with underlying diseases. Although the difference in pitting edema was statistically significant between the study group and control group (2=4.442, P0.05), the differences in other clinical manifestations had no statistical significances between two groups. The drug susceptibility test results indicasted that Nocardia was sensitive to sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (TMP-SMX), amikacin, minocycline and so on. The difference in death rate between two groups was statistically significant (2=4.576,P0.05). Conclusion The lungs are mainly affected by nocardiosis. No obvious heterogeneity in clinical manifestations was observed, but prognosis had obvious heterogeneity. Sulfamethoxazole is still a choice for Nocardia infection treatment. It is necessary to conduct early pathologic examination for clinical suspected nocardiosis cases.