Abstract

Nocardia is a ubiquitous aerobic saprophytic actinomycete commonly present in soil and contaminated water. Nocardia asteroides is the predominant human pathogen. We report here a rare case of nocardial pneumonia that was wrongly treated as pulmonary tuberculosis for first few weeks. Lack of improvement led to further exploration of case with examination of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and sputum samples with Gram stain, which gave the confirmatory diagnosis of Nocardia. It was further supported by culture of nocardial colonies on blood agar respectively.

Key words: Nocardial pneumonia, BAL fluid, Gram stain