Listeria monocytogenes Meningitis in a Transplant Recipient

RENAL transplantation, which is performed in more than 120 institutions in this country, creates an enlarging patient population with susceptibility to infectious diseases that have been seen uncommonly except in association with debilitating conditions such as cancer and its chemotherapy. As increasing numbers of transplant recipients return for long-term care by an assortment of nephrologists, internists, urologists, and general surgeons, an awareness of the unusual infections to which they fall victim is required, as well as a reemphasis on the fact that they may have more than one major infection synchronously. We here report a case of Listeria monocytogenes meningitis that occurred concurrently with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonitis in a transplant recipient. Report of a Case An 18-year-old man in chronic renal failure received a renal allograft from his mother on May 6, 1973. After two severe rejections, his maintenance immunosuppression consisted of azathioprine, 250 mg/day, and methylprednisolone (Medrol), 90 mg/day.