Sphingomonas paucimobilis

Question

Hello,

in the last throat swab of my daughter (2 years) the germ Sphingomonas paucimobilis has been found. Now she should take 2 times a day 2ml Ciprofloxacin solution 5% for 14 days.
Could you please tell me, if this is a really persistent germ? Is there the hope that she gets rid of it again and how problematically it has to be regarded? Where does one get such a germ from?

The center wrote to me that it is not a bad germ, but has to be treated though. Somewhere I have read that this germ belonged to the species of Pseudomonas before, but sometime has been separeated from it?

Many thanks and best regards.

Answer

Hello,

Sphingomonas paucimobilis is like you describe it, a Pseudomonas-like germ. It is found relatively seldom even if it can be assumed, that this germ likes the same environmental circumstances as Pseudomonas aeruginosa. If the germ itself is "bad" is not easy to answer, as there is no sufficient data on patients having this germ. Because it is like this I would assume that it is not. The question if this germ is persistent is also not easy to answer. A throat swab is a picture of the moment and it is well possible, that this germ will not be detectable the next time. That does not mean, that it has to be disappeared imperatively. Rather one has to assume that there are at the moment sufficiently good circumstances that Pseudomonas or even Pseudomonas-like germs colonize in the airways of your daughter. This can even also mean, that next time, if the germ can probably not be detected anymore, it has only been displaced by other germs, even if those are not on the result sheet.

Throat swabs have their diagnostic limitations, as one knows. I think that this is also the reason for the decided therapeutic approach of the doctors in charge. With the antibiotic treatment and afterwards one should ask the question, how a situation can hopefully again be achieved via intensification of the inhalation and breathing therapy, in which the germs can only hardly colonizte the airways of your little daughter.

Yours sincerely,
Olaf Sommerburg

09.12.2010