Brevibacterium casei

Brevibacterium casei (B. casei) is an aerobic, gram positive bacillus to which the aroma and colour of cheese is attributed, and until not long ago it was postulated to be a cutaneous saprophyte 1) with no pathogenic ability. There are few cases of infections caused by this genus and they are mainly reported as a pathogen in immunocompromised patients 2). catheter-related infections 3). 4)

Brevibacterium casei is the most commonly reported species of Brevibacterium isolated from clinical specimens 5).

Case reports

Dotchi et al. reported one case of vertebral osteomyelitis 6).

1)
Gruner E, Pfyffer GE, von Graeventz A. Characterization of Brevibacterium spp. from clinical specimens. J Clin Microbiol. 1993;31:1408–12.
2) , 3)
Bal ZS, Sen S, Karapinar DY, Aydemir S, Vardar F. The first reported catheterrelated Brevibacterium casei bloodstreaminfectionina child withacute leukemia and review of the literature. Braz J Infect Dis. 2015;19:213–5.
4)
Althaf MM, Abdelsalam MS, Alsunaid MS, Hussein MH. Brevibacterium casei isolated as a cause of relapsing peritonitis. BMJ Case Rep. 2014, http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bcr-2014-203611.
5)
Gruner, E., Steigerwalt, A. G., Hollis, D. G., Weyant, R. S., Weaver, R. E., Moss, C. W., Daneshvar, M., Brown, J. M. & Brenner, D. J. (1994). Human infections caused by Brevibacterium casei, formerly CDC groups B-1 and B-3. J Clin Microbiol 32, 1511–1518
6)
Doutchi M, Seng P, Menard A, Meddeb L, Adetchessi T, Fuentes S, Dufour H, Stein A. Changing trends in the epidemiology of vertebral osteomyelitis in Marseille, France. New Microbes New Infect. 2015 May 22;7:1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.nmni.2015.04.008. PMID: 26110060; PMCID: PMC4475833.