Background: Catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI), caused by rapidly growing mycobacteria (RGM), is a rare infectious complication in hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients and can often be misdiagnosed as Gram-positive rod (GPR) bacteremia.
Case presentation: We present a case of CRBSI caused by Mycobacterium wolinskyi, a rare RGM, in a 44-year-old female patient who received an umbilical cord blood transplant.
Conclusions: Rapidly growing mycobacteria can stain as GPRs and may grow in routine blood culture media after 3-4 days of incubation. These features are not widely known to clinicians, and acid-fast staining is therefore recommended when unidentifiable GPRs are detected in blood cultures, especially in immunocompromised patients, such as those with hematologic malignancies or intravascular devices.
Keywords: Case report; Mycobacterium wolinskyi; Rapidly growing mycobacteria; Umbilical cord blood transplant; Unidentifiable Gram-positive rods.
© 2022. The Author(s).