Neurological and immunological dysfunction in two patients with Bartonella henselae bacteremia

[Kati]

Clin Case Rep. 2017 Apr 26;5(6):931-935. doi: 10.1002/ccr3.977. eCollection 2017 Jun.
Neurological and immunological dysfunction in two patients with Bartonella henselae bacteremia.

Kaufman DL1, Kogelnik AM1, Mozayeni RB2, Cherry NA2, Breitschwerdt EB3.
Author information
1 Open Medicine InstituteMountain ViewCalifornia.
2 Galaxy DiagnosticsResearch Triangle ParkNorth Carolina.
3 Department of Clinical Sciences and the Intracellular Pathogens Research LaboratoryInstitute for Comparative MedicineCollege of Veterinary MedicineNorth Carolina State UniversityRaleighNorth Carolina.


Abstract
Recently, BAPGM enrichment culture has documented Bartonella bacteremia in previously healthy, "nonimmunocompromised" patients following arthropod exposures. Neurobartonellosis should be among the differential diagnoses for patients with persistent or recurrent neurological symptoms of undetermined etiology. Microbiological and immunological testing should be concurrently pursued to determine whether defective immune function accompanies Bartonella bacteremia.

Note: 2 case reports are presented.

Full text link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5458018/pdf/CCR3-5-931.pdf

 

[Mohawk1995]

Interesting both the signs of a chronic infection and Neuro/immune dysfunction. One treated for infection improved. The other didn't. Would be interesting to know what the difference was at a cellular physiology level.

Also reminds me of being 15 and listening to Ted Nugent playing Cat Scratch Fever. But I digress.

 

[msf]

KDM has been testing patients for BH (and other Bartonella species) for years. It´s nice to see that some other ME physicians are aware of chronic bacterial infections, though.

 

[Hutan]

That's a very interesting paper. The conflicts of interest (some of the authors are involved in the company that offers the testing that identified the Bartonella) should be noted.

It was interesting that Bartonella wasn't identified from the sequence of 'BAPGM enrichment blood culture, PCR amplification, and DNA sequence confirmation' when the blood culture was done for 8 or even 14 days - it took 21 days.

Here's a good presentation on Bartonella for those of you who haven't seen it yet. It discusses the wide range of symptoms and the difficulty of identifying infections, among other things. It takes a little while to get into the meat of the presentation, bear with it.

I think Bartonella infection is certainly something to check out, although doing so properly isn't going to be easy for most of us.

 

[duncan]

Chronicity is not peculiar to Lyme; it applies to Bartonella as well. Ditto for Babesiosis.

My thoughts were similar to @Hutan: Good paper on several levels, but the conflicts of interest may prove problematic.