Over a 12-month period, Corynebacterium striatum strains were isolated
from clinical specimens from 14 patients admitted to a surgical intensive
care unit. These isolates were identical by morphology and biotype and
displayed the same antibiogram. Ten isolates were found to be the sole
possible pathogen. These 10 isolates were from six patients, three of whom
had signs of infection at the time of positive culture. Further typing was
performed by random amplification of polymorphic DNA analysis, by which
all strains were identical and were found to differ to various degrees
from reference strains and from isolates found in clinical samples from
other wards. In a case-control study the only independent risk factor for
acquiring the strain was intubation for longer than 24 h (odds ratio,
20.09; 95
