Toxic shock syndrome caused by staphylococcus aureus: studies on a fatal case and review of literatures

Toxic shock syndrome （TSS） is, relatively, a new disorder recently recognized by medical circle. So far, very few cases have been reported in our country. This paper presents a male fatal case, of whom, the clinical manifestations and laboratory findings basically coincided with the diagnostic criteria set by the CDC of USA. What is special of all is that cell-wall-deficient variant of staphylococcus aureus-L-form bacteria wereisolated from the patient’s blood, and the revertants of which were proved to be a TSS toxin-1 （TSST-1） positive strain. Some other aspects, such as the differencial diagnosis, pathogenesis and the possible role of L-forms, are also discussed, while some major advances in TSS reviewed.