A Case of Acute Pyogenic Sacroiliitis and Bacteremia Caused by Community-Acquired Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

Pyogenic sacroiliitis is a rare osteoarticular infection, occurring most frequently in children and young adults. Diagnosis of the disease is challenging because of a general lack of awareness of the disease and its nonspecific signs and symptoms. Staphylococcus aureus is the most common causative bacteria in pyogenic sacroiliitis. Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) has typically been considered a hospital-associated pathogen; however, community-acquired (CA)-MRSA infections are becoming increasingly common in Korea. We report the first domestic case of acute pyogenic sacroiliitis with abscess and bacteremia caused by CA-MRSA. The pathogen carried the type IV-A staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) without the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) gene, and was identified as sequence type (ST) 72 by multilocus sequence typing.