Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Nov 27, 2024; 16(11): 1339-1347
Published online Nov 27, 2024. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v16.i11.1339
Liver failure after Bacillus cereus food poisoning, an under-recognized entity: A case report
Olivier Chatelanat, Mikaël de Lorenzi-Tognon, Laurent Spahr, Abdessalam Cherkaoui, Roger Stephan, Marie Ongaro, Laurent Kaiser, Nicolas Goossens
Olivier Chatelanat, Laurent Spahr, Marie Ongaro, Nicolas Goossens, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva 1205, Switzerland
Mikaël de Lorenzi-Tognon, Laurent Kaiser, Department of Infectious Diseases, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva 1205, Switzerland
Abdessalam Cherkaoui, Department of Genetics and Laboratory Medicine, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva 1205, Switzerland
Roger Stephan, Institute for Food Safety and Hygiene, University of Zürich, Zurich 8057, Switzerland
Author contributions: All authors have approved the manuscript for submission and publication; Chatelanat O and de Lorenzi-Tognon M collected the data, interpreted the results of analyses, reviewed the literature, and wrote the manuscript; Spahr L interpreted the results of analyses and reviewed the manuscript; Cherkaoui A, Stephan R, and Ongaro M collected the data, wrote the manuscript; Kaiser L and Goossens N collected the data, interpreted the results of analyses, reviewed the manuscript.
Informed consent statement: The patient provided written consent and all data were anonymized.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Olivier Chatelanat, MD, Chief Physician, Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Geneva University Hospitals, Rue Gabrielle-Perret-Gentil 4, Geneva 1205, Switzerland. olivier.chatelanat@gmail.com
Received: February 7, 2024
Revised: July 29, 2024
Accepted: August 21, 2024
Published online: November 27, 2024
Processing time: 272 Days and 13.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Bacillus cereus is known to cause two types of foodborne diseases: The diarrheal and emetic syndromes, which are usually self-limiting. Previous case studies have reported on children presenting with acute liver failure and rhabdomyolysis linked to mitochondrial dysfunction associated with the cereulide toxin. Herein, we report the first case of severe liver failure in an adult after a foodborne intoxication linked to a Bacillus cereus sequence type 26 strain harboring CES, SPH, and NHE genes. We review the literature and discuss the potential role of n-acetylcysteine therapy in these patients.