Case Report Pulmonary tuberculosis due to Mycobacterium microti: a study of six recent cases in France

Universite´ Montpellier 1, EA 4205 ‘Transmission, Pathogene`se et Pre´vention de l’Infection par leVIH’, and Laboratoire de Bacte´riologie-Virologie Arnaud de Villeneuve, 371 Avenue du DoyenGaston Giraud, F-34295 Montpellier Cedex 5, FranceHuman tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium microti is rare, but its prevalence and clinicalsignificance may have been underestimated. To the best of our knowledge, 21 cases have beenreported in the literature in the last decade. We report six recent pulmonary cases caused by M.microti over a period of 5 years detected in French clinical mycobacteriology laboratories of thehospital network. Our data confirm the potential of M. microti to cause clinical illness inimmunocompetent patients. M. microti grew slowly from specimens, delaying the finalmicrobiological diagnosis. Therefore, patients with tuberculosis caused by M. microti couldbenefit from the use of rapid diagnostic molecular techniques directly on clinical samples. From areview of the literature and this study, a classical antituberculous therapy seems effective intreating patients with M. microti disease.