Gonococcal pericarditis with tamponade - use of molecular technology to improve diagnosis and management

We report a case of gonococcal pericarditis, which was unexpected due to its extremely unusual occurrence. A 42-year-old man presented with fever, chest pain, dyspnea, and tachycardia. He was initially stable but rapidly deteriorated, developing pericardial effusion with tamponade requiring a pericardial window. Incompletely decolorized gram stain of the pericardial fluid initially suggested the presence of gram-positive diplococci, which wrongly directed treatment toward possible pneumococcal infection. Because cultures were negative, identification of the causative organism was attempted by molecular and genotyping analysis. These techniques identified Neisseria gonorrhoeae-multi-antigen sequence type 14994 (por 5136/tbpB 33) as the etiology, which has been associated with disseminated gonococcal disease. Real-time polymerase chain reaction showed no evidence of mutations within the N. gonorrhoeae penA gene responsible for causing ceftriaxone resistance. This was crucial in guiding antibiotic treatment, in light of the high prevalence of multi-drug-resistant N. gonorrhoeae. This case highlights the utility of diagnostic molecular techniques in identifying N. gonorrhoeae as the etiology of an exceedingly rare case of pericarditis.