CASE REPORTS   

Esperienze Dermatologiche 2015 December;17(4):137-8

Copyright © 2016 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Cat-scratch disease: a case report

Pezza M. ¹, Carlomagno V. ², Calandriello R. ², Calandra C. ², Pengue I ², Casucci G. ²

¹ Dermatology Clinic, Villa Maria Private Hospital, Passo di Mirabella Eclano, Avellino, Italy; ² San Francesco Private Hospital, Telese Terme, Benevento, Italy

Cat-scratch disease (CSD) is an emerging zoonosis which was observed for the first time in humans in 1931, although its etiology was clarified only in the early 1990s. CSD may be defined as an “inoculation lymphoreticulosis characterized by local forms (in cutaneous and lymphatic sites), which is usually benign and sometimes complicated by systemic forms in particularly severe granulomatous disease in immunocompromised patients”.1 From an etiological point of view, over the years various agents such as viruses, Rickettsia and Chlamydia were suspected to be responsible for CSD. Only in the 1990s has research come to the identification of Afipia felis and Rochalimaea henselae, then renamed Bartonella henselae, the agents which are responsible for this infection.