Clinical significance of Mycobacterium fortuitum infections in pulmonary disease.

A retrospective review of the records of 56 patients with sputum cultures containing Mycobacterium fortuitum failed to reveal any evidence of clinical or radiographic progression of pulmonary disease, regardless of whether the patient received any antimycobacterial treatment. It was concluded that these organisms generally are innocuous, and that repeated isolations of Mycobacterium fortuitum from the sputum does not warrant incrimination of this organism as the pathogen responsible for pulmonary symptoms or demonstrable pulmonary disease. It was also concluded that prolonged chemotherapy, even with multiple drugs, is neither necessary nor efficacious, because it had no apparent influence on the benign course of patients whose sputum cultures recurrently contained Mycobacterium fortuitum, and because it did not eradicate the organism from the sputum.