Evidence Hub

A case of peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis caused by Rhodococcus pyridinivorans

Lei W, Yang C, Yang Z, Cai X, Zhou J

BMC infectious diseases, 2026

Abstract

Background: Rhodococcus infections are exceedingly rare and largely reported in immunocompromised hosts, with no consensus on optimal therapy due to limited evidence.

Case presentation: This article reports for the first time a case of peritoneal dialysis-associated peritonitis caused by Rhodococcus pyridinivorans in a patient with diabetic nephropathy. The dialysate leukocyte count declined substantially with combination antimicrobial therapy, but complete normalization occurred only after replacing icodextrin with a glucose-based dialysate.

Conclusions: These findings support the use of combination regimens and emphasize the need to consider icodextrin-associated sterile peritonitis when dialysate abnormalities persist despite appropriate antimicrobial treatment.

How strong is the evidence?

Evidence Hub reads this as a case report, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.

How the five levels of evidence work. The level is assigned automatically from the abstract and can be wrong, so check the paper.

Read the paper

Related studies

Go deeper in Evidence Hub

Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.

Open this study Sign up free