A 28-year-old woman was admitted to the gynecology unit diagnosed with a recurrence of disgerminoma. Six months earlier, she had undergone total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy and cyto-reductive surgery for disgerminoma. After the surgery, she received radiotherapy and 4 sessions of chemotherapy. The last session of chemotherapy had ended 2 weeks ago. On day 4, the patient developed a fever (temperature 39.2℃), chills and sweats and was in poor condition in general. Two sets of blood cultures were positive for serotype 1 L. monocytogenes. The patient started receiving penicillin G (20MU/d). On day 6 of hospitalization, she became afebrile and her symptoms and findings progressively improved. Blood cultures that were taken within 3 days of therapy gave negative results for L. monocytogenes. She was discharged from the hospital on the 18th day and subsequently received ampicillin (4g/d) perorally for 7 days.
A 57-year-old man with a history of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and hepatic cirrhosis with a positive serology for the hepatitis C virus was brought to the hospital with a fever (temperature 38.5℃), chills, night sweats, headaches, cough and anorexia. He was empirically treated with I.V. ampicillin/sulbactam (6g/d) and amikacine (1g/d). Two separate blood specimen cultures, drawn over 72 hours, yielded serotype 4 L. monocytogenes. The antibiotic therapy continued for 14 days. The patient's condition gradually improved with antibiotic therapy. When discharged, he was advised to take oral ampicillin/sulbactam (1,5g/d) for an additional 5 days.