Facklamia hominis Isolated from a Wound: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Facklamia hominis is a facultative anaerobic Grampositive coccus generally displaying weak alpha-hemolysis and negativity for catalase and oxidase. Facklamia species are part of the normal flora of the female genitourinary tract and have been reported in invasive diseases such as meningitis and infective endocarditis, albeit rarely. A 67 year-old-man presented to hospital with a tender, erythematous epidermal cyst on the right side of his upper back. Simple excision of the cyst was performed and the pus was taken with a sterile swab for culture, yielding no growth. One week later, discharge was observed in the patient’s wound site and a sterile swab for culture was taken. The colonies grown were identified as F. hominis by the Vitek 2 system (bioMérieux, France), and the result was then reported to clinicians, and later confirmed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported case of F. hominis isolation from a clinical specimen in Korea. (Ann Clin Microbiol 2019;22:50-54)