Sustained Bacteremia With Pleuropneumonia-Like Organisms in a Postpartum Patient

Since the first isolation of pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLO) from man in 1937 by Dienes and Edsall,1these organisms have been cultured from the genitourinary tract, joints, sputum, and spinal fluid of patients.2Only one possible instance of the isolation of pleuropneumonia-like organisms from the blood has appeared in the report of the cultivation of an unusual organism from the blood of a patient with subacute bacterial endocarditis.3However, this organism was described as resembling either the Grahamella organism (Tyzzer) or a pleuropneumonia-like organism, and, on the basis of its described characteristics, it would not seem to be a pleuropneumonia-like organism.4 The clinical course and laboratory findings in a patient with a febrile illness accompanied by sustained bacteremia, during which pleuropneumonia-like organisms were repeatedly isolated from the blood stream, are reported here. REPORT OF A CASE A 16-year-old Negro girl was admitted to the obstetric service of