Foot abscesses with no accompanying wound: clinical presentation and pathogens.

Introduction: Acute bacterial infections of the skin and soft tissue are common and often pose serious complications, most commonly caused by Streptococcus species and Staphylococcus aureus.

Objective: The authors report clinical presentation and pathogens in patients with a foot abscess and no wound.

Methods: The authors retrospectively evaluated the demographics, clinical presentation, and microbiology from 20 patient records.

Results: Twenty patients were identified. Fifteen were male (75%), and 10 patients (50%) had DM. Patients presented to the hospital 7.8 ± 4.8 days after onset of symptoms and underwent surgery 2.0 ± 0.9 days from admission. Patients underwent 2.4 ± 1.0 surgeries while admitted. Patients with DM presented with significantly higher erythrocyte sedimentation rate than patients without DM (66.6 ± 46.1 vs 43.3 ± 26.2; P = .02). There were no polymicrobial infections based on deep intraoperative tissue cultures. Seven patients had methicillin-sensitive S aureus (35%), 4 had Streptococcus agalactiae (20%), 3 had methicillin-resistant S aureus (15%), 1 had Streptococcus pyogenes (5%), 1 had Escherichia coli (5%), 1 had Streptococcus dysgalactiae (5%), 1 had an unidentified Streptococcus species (5%), and 2 had no growth (10%).

Conclusion: Patients with foot abscess and no wounds had single-pathogen infections, predominantly Staphylococcus and Streptococcus.