It’s a pervasive bacterium found in soil and water that rarely causes disease, but a new national review of nocardia infection in people who have had a kidney transplant shows that when it occurs it most commonly causes pneumonia and brain abscess, and reminds their physicians to stay on the lookout for it, investigators say.
Nocardia is called an “opportunistic” agent because it doesn’t make most of us sick, but those with compromised immune responses, like patients who have had an organ transplant or cancer treatment, are more vulnerable, says Dr. Stephanie L. Baer, infectious disease physician at the Medical College of Georgia and chief of Infection Control and Epidemiology at the Charlie Norwood Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta.
