Corynebacterium minutissimum bacteremia and meningitis: a case report and review of literature.

Corynebacterium minutissimum, the causative agent of erythrasma, is a gram-positive, non-spore forming, aerobic or facultative anaerobic bacillus. It has rarely been associated with extracutaneous disease, since its description in 1961. A computerized medline search for review of literature was performed. To our knowledge, there have been 18 cases of C. minutissimum infections that caused conditions other than erythrasma. These include reports of cases of abscess formation, intravascular catheter-related bacteremias, ophthalmologic involvement, endocarditis, peritonitis, cutaneous granulomas, pyelonephritis in an infant and primary bacteremia with underlying hematologic malignancy. We report a rare case of bacteremia and meningitis due to C. minutissimum successfully treated with intravenous ampicillin.