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Jean-Michel Guerin, MD; Philippe Meyer, MD; Yasmina Habib, MD
Hôpital Lariboisière Paris

JAMA. 1987;257(14):1897-1898.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.—

In a recent letter, Del Rio and McGowan¹ report a case of watery diarrhea occurring during pneumococcal septicemia. This occurrence is not unusual. During the period from Jan 1,1979, to Dec 31,1986, we treated in an intensive care unit 86 patients who had severe pneumococcal septicemia. In seven (8%) cases there was severe watery diarrhea.

Report of Cases.— CASE 1.—

A 56-year-old man with alcoholic cirrhosis had bilateral pneumonia and was hypotensive. He had profuse acute diarrhea, was leukoneutropenic, and had disseminated intravascular coagulation. Streptococcus pneumoniae was grown from all blood cultures. Despite treatment with penicillin G, the patient died 12 hours later.

CASE 2.—

An 84-year-old hypertensive man was in a febrile coma. He had no pneumonia, but did have severe watery diarrhea. Streptococcus pneumoniae grew from blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cultures. He died six days later, having shown a flat electroencephalogram, despite . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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