Abstract
A sore throat, which is most commonly viewed as a minor ailment, can be a manifestation of a life-threatening disorder known as Lemierre’s syndrome caused by Fusobacterium necrophorum. We report a new case of Lemierre’s syndrome that occurred in an otherwise healthy 18-year-old woman, who initially presented with fever and sore throat. The diagnosis was not made until a week later when blood cultures became available. This syndrome should be suspected until proven otherwise in any patient with signs of pharyngitis, a painful swollen neck, and pulmonary symptoms. By presenting this curable, but potentially life-threatening case of Lemierre’s syndrome, we hope to increase the awareness of the early clinical manifestations of Lemierre’s syndrome and to emphasize the importance of careful physical examination with special attention to the neck. Clinicians should be aware that exclusion of streptococcal infection in a patient with severe tonsillar infection does not exclude a bacterial cause.
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Acknowledgments
The manuscript has not been simultaneously submitted elsewhere. The abstract was presented as a poster presentation at the National Society of General Internal Medicine conference, April 2008, Pittsburgh, PA. This manuscript was prepared solely by the authors listed and the authors listed on the manuscript have contributed sufficiently to the article to be included as authors.
The authors thank Dr. Huan-You Wang for a critical review of this manuscript.
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This work was not funded by any internal or external source.
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None disclosed.
Statement of proprietary interest
The authors hereby state that there are no commercial or proprietary interests of any type of drug, device, or equipment mentioned in this study. None of the authors has any financial interest of this study.
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Li, HY., Grubb, M., Panda, M. et al. A Sore Throat—Potentially Life-Threatening?. J GEN INTERN MED 24, 872–875 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-1001-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-009-1001-1