Nocardiosis is increasingly being diagnosed because of a growing population of immunocompromised hosts and improvements in the detection of Nocardia species in clinical laboratories. Historically, sulphonamides have been the first-line
therapy for the treatment of
nocardiosis, but sulphonamides tend to have a high rate of
drug allergy in clinical settings. In this report, we described a disseminated Nocardia farcinica
infection that occurred in a patient with
myasthenia gravis who suffered from multiple
drug allergies and was successfully treated using
linezolid. We undertook a review of the literature of previously reported cases of
nocardiosis treated with
linezolid. To date, only 15 cases of
nocardiosis treated with
linezolid have been published. All cases exhibited long-term tolerance of
linezolid, and 14 of 15 cases showed either an improvement in or complete clearance of the
infection. According to the literature review,
linezolid is an attractive alternative to
trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole for the treatment of disseminated
nocardiosis, despite limited clinical evidence to support this claim.