Colonization of the tip of a thoracic catheter by Enterococcus faecalis resistant to vancomycin and linezolid.

We report the isolation of Enterococcus faecalis resistant to vancomycin and linezolid from the tip of a thoracic drainage catheter in an elderly patient. He was treated with vancomycin for a pleural empyema due to a meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus but never received linezolid. A surveillance rectal swab yielded both linezolid-susceptible and -resistant strains, and the two isolates were not genotypically related.