A dog’s dinner: an interesting case presenting as gastroenteritis
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Caroline Elliott; John-Patrick Byars; Barbara Weinhardt; Kamaljit Khalsa
- Source
- BMJ Case Rep
- Subject
- Male
0301 basic medicine
Abdominal pain
Pediatrics
medicine.medical_specialty
Vomiting
Multiple Organ Failure
medicine.medical_treatment
030106 microbiology
law.invention
03 medical and health sciences
Dogs
0302 clinical medicine
Rare Disease
law
Sepsis
Intensive care
medicine
Animals
Humans
Bites and Stings
030212 general & internal medicine
Dialysis
biology
business.industry
Nausea
General Medicine
Emergency department
Capnocytophaga canimorsus
Middle Aged
biology.organism_classification
Intensive care unit
Abdominal Pain
Gastroenteritis
Gram staining
medicine.symptom
Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections
business
Capnocytophaga
- Language
- ISSN
- 1757-790X
We report a case of a 60-year-old Caucasian man with a history of alcohol excess who presented to the emergency department with a 72-hour history of abdominal pain, profuse diarrhoea and vomiting. He was admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) 12 hours later in extremis with severe sepsis and multiorgan failure. Collateral history from the patient on admission to ICU identified that he had been bitten by a dog 3 days prior to his symptom onset. Provisional microscopy and Gram staining from peripheral blood cultures taken on admission revealed the presence of long, thin Gram-negative bacilli in the anaerobic bottle only. This was later identified asCapnocytophaga canimorsus. The patient survived the septic episode and was discharged to level 2 care 9 days later under the care of the renal physicians for ongoing renal dialysis.