Campylobacter rectus Thoracic Empyema in a Severely Malnourished Host With Preserved Conventional Immune Markers: A Case Report and Literature Review

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Campylobacter rectus is a fastidious, anaerobic to microaerophilic gram-negative bacillus best recognized as a key periodontopathogen residing in the oral cavity.This organism is generally confined to the subgingival flora and rarely causes disease beyond the oral cavity.However, invasive extraoral infection with C. rectus has been described in isolated case reports, and thoracic empyema caused by this organism remains exceptionally rare, with diagnosis often delayed due to its fastidious growth requirements and low clinical suspicion.We present the case of a malnourished patient with poor dentition who developed thoracic empyema due to C. rectus.This case underscores the importance of considering fastidious oral commensals in the differential diagnosis of culture-negative empyema and highlights poor dentition as an underrecognized source of invasive infection in vulnerable hosts.