CASE REPORT article

Front. Med.

Sec. Pulmonary Medicine

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1571506

First reported Tannerella forsythia infection in a patient with extensive bronchiectasis: A case report

Provisionally accepted
  • Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Tannerella forsythia infection was common in oral diseases but less reported in lung diseases. This report presents a patient with bronchiectasis who was infected by Tannerella forsythia and subsequently hospitalized with symptoms including fever, progressive cough, sputum production, and shortness of breath. A chest computed tomography (CT) scan revealed multiple bilateral pulmonary bronchiectasis with signs of infection. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid primarily detected Tannerella forsythia. Treatment with Piperacillin-tazobactam and ornidazole resulted in a favorable outcome. This case first reported a patient with extensive bronchiectasis infected by Tannerella forsythia and provided an effective treatment.

Keywords: non-Cystic Fibrosis Bronchiectasis, Oral pathogen, Tannerella forsythia, MNGs, antibiotics

Received: 05 Feb 2025; Accepted: 14 Apr 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Fu, Sun and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Chun Chen, Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital, Hangzhou, 310014, Zhejiang Province, China

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.