Clinical Information

Metamycoplasma hominis, previously Mycoplasma hominis, has been associated with a number of clinically significant infections, although it is also part of the normal urogenital microbiota.

M hominis may be found in the respiratory specimens and spinal fluid of neonates. Although the clinical significance of such findings is often unclear, as spontaneous clinical recovery may occur without specific treatment. In premature infants, clinical manifestations of meningoencephalitis have been reported.

M hominis may play a role in some cases of pelvic inflammatory disease, usually in combination with other organisms. M hominis may be isolated from amniotic fluid of women with preterm labor, premature rupture of membranes, spontaneous term labor, or chorioamnionitis; there is evidence that it may be involved in postpartum fever or fever following abortion, usually as a complication of endometritis.

M hominis has rarely been associated with septic arthritis (including prosthetic joint infection), pyelonephritis, intraabdominal infection, wound infection, endocarditis, central nervous system infection (including meningoencephalitis, brain abscess, central nervous system shunt infection and subdural empyema), pneumonia, and infected pleural and pericardial effusions. Extragenital infection typically occurs in those with hypogammaglobulinemia or depressed cell-mediated immunity; in lung transplant recipients in particular, M hominis has been associated with pleuritis and mediastinitis. Recent evidence implicates donor transmission in some cases of M hominis infection in lung transplant recipients.

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) detection of M hominis is sensitive, specific, and provides same-day results. Although this organism can occasionally be detected in routine plate cultures, this is neither a rapid nor a sensitive approach to detection. Specialized cultures are more time consuming than the described PCR assay. The described PCR assay has replaced conventional culture for M hominis at Mayo Clinic Laboratories due to its speed and equivalent performance to culture.