Successful management of disseminated Nocardia transvalensis infection in a heart transplant recipient after development of sulfonamide resistance: case report and review.

Nocardia transvalensis is a rarely reported cause of clinically significant disease, and, to our knowledge, has not been reported previously as a cause of infection in the cardiac transplant population. We report a case of N transvalensis new taxon-2 pulmonary infection that disseminated to the brain and skin in a cardiac transplant recipient despite adequate sulfonamide serum levels. Subsequent isolates were resistant to sulfonamides, and molecular ribotyping of the primary and subsequent isolates confirmed that these were the same N transvalensis new taxon-2 strain. The taxonomic and diagnostic considerations, as well as the clinical significance of anti-microbial-resistant nocardia, are reviewed and discussed herein.