Letter to the Editor Clinical Microbiology Necrotizing Pneumonia and Empyema in an Immunocompetent Patient Caused by Nocardia

Nocardiosis is a rare and potentially life-threatening infection. Nocardia species are a group of aerobic actinomycetes, which are filamentous, branching, gram-positive, and acid-fast bacilli [1]. Worldwide, respiratory and disseminated infections are most often due to N. asteroids complex, which is increasingly recog-nized as an opportunistic infection in immunocompromised hosts with underlying HIV infection, neoplastic disease, or long-term high-dose corticosteroid therapy [2]. Recently, infection of N. cyriacigeorgica was reported in an immunocompromised pa-tient in Korea, which was identified by 16S rRNA sequencing analysis and additional biochemical tests combined to draw a conclusion [3]. Here, we describe a case of necrotizing pneu-monia and empyema caused by N. cyriacigeorgica in a 77-yr-old Korean male patient who was immunocompetent. This case was diagnosed by DNA amplification and sequence analyses o