Chlamydia Trachomatis in Cervical Lymph Node of Man with Lymphogranuloma Venereum, Croatia 2014
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RESEARCH LETTERS 9. Grad YH, Kirkcaldy RD, Trees D, Dordel J, Harris SR, ymphogranuloma venereum (LGV) is a sexually trans- Goldstein E, et al. Genomic epidemiology of Neisseria mitted infection caused by serovars L1, L2, and L3 of gonorrhoeae with reduced susceptibility to cefixime in the USA: L a retrospective observational study. Lancet Infect Dis. 2014; the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. The infection typi- 14:220–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(13)70693-5 cally causes genital ulcers, proctitis, or femoral/inguinal 10. Martin IM, Ison CA, Aanensen DM, Fenton KA, Spratt BG. Rapid lymphadenopathy with or without constitutional symp- sequence-based identification of gonococcal transmission clusters toms. In the past decade, outbreaks of LGV have been re- in a large metropolitan area. J Infect Dis. 2004;189:1497–505. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/383047 ported in North America, Australia, and Europe, mainly as 11. Demczuk W, Sidhu S, Unemo M, Whiley DM, Allen VG, proctitis among HIV-infected men who have sex with men Dillon JR, et al. Neisseria gonorrhoeae sequence typing for (MSM) (1). We report a patient with pharyngitis, proctitis, antimicrobial resistance, a novel antimicrobial resistance and cervical lymphadenitis in whom LGV-specific DNA multilocus typing scheme for tracking global dissemination of N. gonorrhoeae strains. J Clin Microbiol. 2017;55:1454–68. was detected by real-time reverse transcription PCR (RT- http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/JCM.00100-17 PCR) in a cervical lymph node fine-needle aspirate. The patient was a 48-year-old, HIV-positive man in Address for correspondence: Yue-Ping Yin, National Center for STD Croatia who came to an outpatient HIV clinic in August Control, Chinese CDC, Institute of Dermatology, Chinese Academy of 2014 with perianal pain for 10 days and bloody rectal dis- Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. 12 Jiangwangmiao charge with normal stool consistency. He also reported a St, Nanjing 210042, China; email: [email protected] painful, enlarged cervical lymph node but did not have a sore throat. On the first day of the illness, he had fever, which subsided the next day. He reported having unpro- tected receptive anal and oral sex with other men while visiting Berlin, Germany, 2 weeks earlier. Clinical exami- nation demonstrated exudate on the right tonsil, a painful and enlarged right cervical lymph node (5 × 2 cm) (online Technical Appendix Figure, https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/EID/ Chlamydia trachomatis in article/24/4/17-1872-Techapp1.pdf), perianal pain on pal- pation, and a purulent rectal discharge. Cervical Lymph Node of The patient was given a diagnosis of HIV infection in Man with Lymphogranuloma 2002 and had been receiving antiretroviral therapy since Venereum, Croatia, 20141 July 2002. Plasma viremia had been undetectable since October 2002, and his CD4+ T-cell count before this ill- ness was 2,082 cells/mm3. His clinical history included Branimir Gjurašin, Snježana Židovec Lepej, treatment for neurosyphilis, epilepsy, and diarrhea caused Michelle J. Cole, Rachel Pitt, Josip Begovac by Microsporidiae spp., Blastocystis hominis, and Ent- amoeba histolytica. Author affiliations: University Hospital for Infectious Diseases Dr. During examination at the HIV clinic, specimens were Fran Mihaljević, Zagreb, Croatia (B. Gjurašin, S.Ž. Lepej, obtained from the pharynx, rectum, and urine for culture J. Begovac); Public Health England, London, UK (M.J. Cole, R. and a nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT). During fine- Pitt); University of Zagreb School of Medicine, Zagreb (J. Begovac) needle aspiration of a cervical lymph node, ≈1 mL of pus DOI: https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2404.171872 was removed and analyzed. The lymph node aspirate and a rectal swab specimen were positive for C. trachomatis We report an HIV-infected person who was treated for lym- DNA by the C. trachomatis/Neisseria gonorrhoeae RT- phogranuloma venereum cervical lymphadenopathy and PCR (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL, USA). proctitis in Croatia in 2014. Infection with a variant L2b gen- Cytologic examination of the fine-needle aspirate of ovar of Chlamydia trachomatis was detected in a cervical the affected lymph node predominantly showed elements of lymph node aspirate. A prolonged course of doxycycline granulomatous inflammation. An indirect immunofluores- was required to cure the infection. cence assay serum test result for C. trachomatis antibodies was positive (IgG titer >1:512, IgA titer 1:256). Test results 1Results from this study were presented as a poster at the for N. gonorrhoeae were negative (culture of the rectal swab IDWEEK 2017 Conference, October 4–8, 2017, San Diego, CA, and NAAT for urine and rectum). Results of a throat culture USA. Abstracts of the IDWEEK 2017 Conference have been for Streptococcus pyogenes and routine lymph node aspirate published in a supplement issue of Open Forum Infectious culture for bacteria were also negative. Serum serologic test Diseases (https://idsa.confex.com/idsa/2017/webprogram/ results were negative for acute infection with Treponema POSTER.html). pallidum, Bartonella spp., and Toxoplasma gondii. 806 Emerging Infectious Diseases • www.cdc.gov/eid • Vol. 24, No. 4, April 2018 RESEARCH LETTERS Table. Characteristics of 8 patients with lymphogranuloma venereum and cervical lymphadenopathy* Patient age, Method of laboratory Reference y/sex Clinical presentation confirmation Therapy/duration Andrada et al. (7) 30/M Mouth ulcer, weight loss, cervical Serologic analysis Tetracycline/5 wk lymphadenopathy Thorsteinsson et al. (3) 31/M Fever, supraclavicular, axillar, Serologic analysis Tetracycline/4 wk retroperitoneal, and cervical lymphadenopathy Watson et al. (6) 19/F Sore throat, tonsillitis, arthritis, Serologic analysis Phenoxymethylpenicillin, erythema nodosum, cervical indomethacin, lymphadenopathy erythromycin† Albay and Mathisen (5) 18/F Fever, cervical lymphadenopathy Serologic analysis Ampicillin/sulbactam, doxycycline† Tchernev et al. (8) 36/M Facial skin lesions, cervical and axillary NAAT: Chlamydia Surgical excision of lymphadenopathy trachomatis DNA in skin cervical lymph nodes; lesions and serologic pentamidine and analysis doxycycline/3 wk Dosekun et al. (4) 32/M Sore throat, cervical lymphadenopathy, NAAT: LGV-specific DNA Amoxicillin/1 wk, odynophagia, mouth ulcer, proctitis, in pharyngeal swab doxycycline/1 wk cervical lymphadenopathy specimen Dosekun et al. (4) 27/M Sore throat, cervical lymphadenopathy, NAAT: LGV-specific DNA Azithromycin/1 g, odynophagia, mouth ulcer, proctitis, in pharyngeal and rectal doxycycline/2 wk cervical lymphadenopathy swab specimens This study 48/M Fever, cervical lymphadenopathy, NAAT: LGV-specific DNA Ceftriaxone/5 d, proctitis in cervical lymph node doxycycline/6 wk sample obtained by fine- needle aspirate; serologic analysis *LGV, lymphogranuloma venereum; NAAT, nucleic acid amplification test. †Duration of therapy not reported. DNA from the lymph node specimen was frozen and without cervical involvement (9). In all of these cases, sent to Public Health England (London, UK) in Febru- infection with LGV caused by C. trachomatis was estab- ary 2017. LGV-specific DNA was detected by using an lished by serologic testing or an NAAT for a pharyngeal in-house TaqMan RT-PCR. The sequence of the outer specimen. It is essential to maintain a high level of clinical membrane protein gene from lymph node punctate was suspicion for LGV in MSM even if noninguinal/femoral identical to that of the C. trachomatis L2 reference strain lymph nodes are affected. L2/434/Bu. The recommended treatment for LGV is doxycycline At the initial visit, the patient was treated with intrave- for 21 days. However, several clinical observations have nous ceftriaxone (2 g) and oral doxycycline (2 × 100 mg). suggested that a 21-day course of doxycycline therapy is After NAATs showed C. trachomatis infection, only doxy- insufficient for treating inguinal bubonic LGV2,10 ( ), Rec- cycline therapy was continued. Symptoms of proctitis sub- ommendations have been given to carefully follow up with sided in 2 days. However, because cervical lymphadenitis patients and continue doxycycline treatment until symp- persisted, we treated the patient with a prolonged course toms resolve (10). We followed these recommendations for (6 weeks) of doxycycline. Eventually, the patient showed our patient who had bubonic cervical lymph node LGV. a full recovery. Our report indicates that LGV might be present in Acknowledgment MSM in Croatia. The first NAAT-confirmed case of LGV in We thank the patient for providing permission to publish southeastern Europe was reported in Slovenia and described the case. an HIV-negative MSM who was ill in 2015 (2). LGV is probably underdiagnosed in southeastern Europe because This study was partially supported by the Croatian Science of lack of diagnostics and awareness of the infection. Foundation (project no. IP-2014-09-4461) and the European There have been only a few case reports of LGV with Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (service contract no. associated cervical lymphadenopathy (3–8) (Table). Some ECD.6300). cases had generalized lymphadenopathy (axillar, supracla- Dr. Gjurašin is a fourth-year resident in infectious diseases at the vicular, and retroperitoneal) with constitutional symptoms University Hospital for Infectious Diseases Dr. Fran Mihaljević, (3); pharyngitis/odynophagia/proctitis/tongue soreness Zagreb, Croatia. His primary research interests are infectious (4,7); constitutional symptoms (5,7); tonsillitis