CASE REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Nephrology
This article is part of the Research TopicCritical Cases in Clinical NephrologyView all 10 articles
A kidney transplant recipient with shingles and necrotizing bacterial superinfection: a case report
Provisionally accepted
Anna Garstenauer1
Raffael Scharinger2
Christof Aigner1
Florina Regele1
Constantin Aschauer1
Anselm Jorda1
Georg Gelbenegger3*
Farsad Alexander Eskandary1- 1Medizinische Universitat Wien, Vienna, Austria
- 2Klinik Donaustadt, Vienna, Austria
- 3Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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We report a 45-year-old kidney transplant recipient who developed primary varicella zoster virus infection complicated by monomicrobial necrotizing skin and soft tissue infection caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Progressive facial and oropharyngeal edema led to airway compromise requiring endotracheal intubation. Blood and wound cultures grew Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and targeted therapy with meropenem resulted in clinical improvement. The patient recovered with preserved allograft function but was left with residual facial nerve palsy. Pseudomonas aeruginosa– associated monomicrobial necrotizing skin and soft tissue infections are rare, occur predominantly in immunocompromised patients, and can be life-threatening.
Keywords: kidney tranplantation, Necrotizing skin and soft tissue infection, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Superinfection, Varizella zoster virus
Received: 23 Oct 2025; Accepted: 28 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Garstenauer, Scharinger, Aigner, Regele, Aschauer, Jorda, Gelbenegger and Eskandary. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Georg Gelbenegger
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