First case of bacteremic liver abscess caused by an ST260-related (ST1861), hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae

Hypervirulent strains of K. pneumoniae (hvKP) typically cause community-acquired pyogenic liver abscesses (CA-PLA) in patients with no clinical history of hepatobiliary disease, often associated with bacteremia and metastatic spread to distant sites. 2 Infections caused by hvKP were described since the mid-1980s in the Asian Pacific rim and are increasingly reported also in western countries, including France, Sweden, Belgium and Spain.3 European cases have mostly been connected with travel or migration; however, several cases of infections in non-Asiatic patients with no contacts with endemic regions have recently been described.3 The vast majority of the strains that cause CA-PLA possess a characteristic hypermucoviscous phenotype, yielding positivity for “string test”.