A man in Ireland earned the unpleasant distinction of developing an exceedingly rare infection on his penis—one that has a puzzling origin, but may be connected to his work with dead animals.
According to an article published in ASM Case Reports on Thursday, the 57-year-old man went to a hospital in Dublin after his penis became red, swollen, and painful over the course of a week. He also had a fever. Doctors promptly admitted him to the hospital and noted that he had received a kidney transplant 15 years prior. As such, he was on immunosuppressive drugs, which keep his body from rejecting the organ, but could also allow infections to run amok.
Initial blood work found hints of an infection, and the doctors initially suspected a bacterial skin infection (cellulitis) had taken hold in his nether region. So, they put him on some standard antibiotics for that. But his penis only got worse, redder, and more swollen. This prompted consultation with infectious disease doctors.
A more thorough review of the man’s case revealed that in the three months before his hospital visit, he had experienced fever, drenching night sweats, chills, loss of appetite, and weight loss. They also noted that he had a lot of dead animal exposure. He was born and raised on a farm in rural Ireland, worked as a butcher handling deer and occasionally cattle, and was an avid hunter who field-dressed game.
Dangerous disease
Given the systemic symptoms he mentioned in previous months, the doctors took computed tomography (CT) scans of his chest, abdomen, and pelvic region to investigate the cause. The images quickly revealed the answer; his lungs were speckled with seed-like nodules, characteristic of miliary tuberculosis.