Short course of linezolid treatment for vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium meningitis

Enterococci might be one of the meningitis pathogens, but meningitis is rarely caused by vancomycin-resistant enterococci. In this report, we present a 69-year-old man who had the underlying chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with long-term steroid treatment suffered from a meningitis episode after hospitalisation for the urinary tract infection. The cerebrospinal fluid culture of the patient grew Enterococcus faecium which was resistant to vancomycin. A vancomycin-resistant E. faecium was also isolated from the rectal swab of the patient. These two E. faecium isolates were found to harbour the vanA gene and to be identical by pulsed field gel electrophoresis typing. The patient was treated successfully with intravenous linezolid, 600 mg every 12 h for 2 weeks. This was the first case of meningitis caused by vancomycin-resistant E. faecium in Taiwan.