Arcobacter butzleri bacteremia in a patient with liver cirrhosis

Invasive Arcobacter butzleri infection in humans has been rarely described. We report a 60-year-old man with liver cirrhosis who presented with high fever and esophageal variceal bleeding. Two aerobic blood cultures grew Campylobacter-like organisms. The biochemical reactions of the isolate were inconclusive, while sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA gene definitively identified the organism as A. butzleri. The patient's bleeding stopped after endoscopic sclerosing therapy. Although the organism appeared to be resistant to cephalosporins on the basis of the minimum inhibitory concentrations determined with the E test, the fever resolved with parenteral cefuroxime. Whether the clinical improvement was related to cephalosporin therapy or to the self-limited nature of Arcobacter bacteremia is not known.