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HOME > Kosin Med J > Volume 33(1); 2018 > Article
Case Report
An atypical case of Lemierre syndrome following oropharyngeal infection
Seo Yeon Yang, Hae Yeul Park, Kyoung Hwa Lee, You Jin Chun, Hyo Eun Kim, Seong Han Kim, Su Jin Jeong
Kosin Medical Journal 2018;33(1):110-116.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7180/kmj.2018.33.1.110
Published online: January 21, 2018

Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospitial, Seoul, Korea

Corresponding Author: Su Jin Jeong, Department of Internal Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Gangnam Severance Hospitial, 211 Eonju-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06273, Korea Tel: +82-2-2019-3304 Fax: +82-2-2019-3304 E-mail: JSJ@yuhs.ac.kr
• Received: October 26, 2015   • Accepted: November 18, 2015

Copyright © 2018 Kosin University School of Medicine Proceedings

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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  • Lemierre syndrome is characterized by anaerobic bacterial infection in the head and neck and clinical or radiological evidence of internal jugular vein thrombophlebitis. The most common pathogens are Fusobacterium species, particularly Fusobacterium necrophorum. Septic emboli resulting from infected thrombophlebitis of the internal jugular vein leads to metastatic infections involving lung, liver, kidney, bone and central nervous system. The accurate diagnosis and treatment is important because it may be associated with a high mortality rate if untreated. We present a case of 28-year-old man with an atypical history for the diagnosis of Lemierre syndrome, which showed no definite evidence of internal jugular thrombophlebitis.
Fig. 1.
Chest X-ray (Admission day)
kmj-33-110f1.jpg
Fig. 2.
Computed tomography of neck. It shows diffuse enlargement of both tonsil (A) and reactive lymph nodes in both neck level II, III. (B) There is no definite evidence of internal jugular thrombophlebitis. (C)
kmj-33-110f2.jpg
Fig. 3.
Chest X-ray and Computed tomography of chest. It shows empyema of left lung (arrow).
kmj-33-110f3.jpg
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