TY - JOUR T1 - <em>Mycobacterium mucogenicum</em> from the Hickman line of an immunocompromised patient JF - Journal of Clinical Pathology JO - J Clin Pathol SP - 140 LP - 141 DO - 10.1136/jcp.2007.049486 VL - 61 IS - 1 AU - C Marshall AU - J Samuel AU - A Galloway AU - S Pedler Y1 - 2008/01/01 UR - http://jcp.bmj.com/content/61/1/140.abstract N2 - Gram stain of a positive blood culture is the clinician’s first indication of a possible causative infective organism and a guide to suitable antimicrobial therapy prior to cultural and phenotypic identification with susceptibility test results. Occasionally interpretation of a Gram stain can be difficult; if there is a low bacterial load, no organisms may be seen. Such a case is reported, where a positive blood culture taken from the Hickman line of an immunocompromised patient flagged as positive at 5 days’ incubation, but no organisms were seen on Gram film. On subculture, a slow growing Gram-positive bacillus was isolated which was initially misidentified and reported as a “diphtheroid” species. The actual identity of this organism and further isolates was later elucidated as Mycobacterium mucogenicum, a rapidly growing non-tuberculous mycobacterium. ER -