Pulmonary and extrapulmonary manifestations of L. pneumophila.

In three of five fatal cases of Legionnaires' Disease (LD) bacteria have been detected by DFA in extrapulmonary organs including spleen, liver, kidney, heart and brain. Typical fluorescent pleomorphic rods were seen mostly intravascularly and occasionally in phagocytes of the mononuclear phagocytic system. Legionellae were found extravascularly in the myocard and in the brain tissue together with single cell necrosis of either muscle fibres or ganglion cells in the respective organ. It was of special interest in this context that the clinical data and functional abnormalities reported for the respective cases might well be explained by the histopathological findings.