Case report and mini-review: Sarcina ventriculi in the stomach of an 80-year-old female

Andrea Kirmaier, Jeffrey Kubiak, Lily Mahler, Xia Qian, Leo Wu, Yuho Ono, Stefan Riedel, Alexandra Medline, Xiao Yang, Sami Elamin, Nezam Afdhal, Ramy Arnaout

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Sarcina ventriculi, also known as Zymosarcina ventriculi and, incorrectly, as Clostridium ventriculi, is rarely encountered in clinical settings. A patient with a complicated gastrointestinal (GI) history, who was acutely presenting with small-bowel obstruction, was found to be colonized by S. ventriculi. The distinctive morphology of this species, with large Gram-variable cocci (up to 3 µm) arranged in two-by-two cuboid clusters reaching up to 20 µm, was key in identifying this bacterium in a stomach biopsy specimen. Sarcina ventriculi appears to be ubiquitously found in nature, and related bacterial species can cause GI-related disease in various animals. Clinical manifestations in humans are broad and often related to other underlying comorbidities. Isolation of S. ventriculi in the laboratory requires anaerobic culture on select media but its absence from standard MALDI-TOF databases complicates identification. Susceptibility data do not exist, so empiric treatment is the only option for this rare pathogen.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number116137
JournalDiagnostic Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Volume108
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2024
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023

Keywords

  • Bundles
  • Clostridia
  • Micrococcus
  • Sarcina
  • Tetrads
  • Zymosarcina

PubMed: MeSH publication types

  • Case Reports
  • Journal Article

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