Streptococcal Infections Following Splenectomy for Trauma

To the Editor.  —We read with interest the recent review of serious infections in adults following splenectomy for trauma by Zarrabi and Rosner.¹The review well illustrates the importance of Streptococcus pneumoniae in causing serious disease in these patients. The authors found only one reported case of an unidentified streptococcus, which was presumably not S pneumoniae, causing post-splenectomy infection. We should like to draw readers' attention to our report,² published in 1981, of serious postsplenectomy infection caused by a streptococcus of Lancefield's group B. The patient was a previously fit 29-year-old man who had had a splenectomy for trauma ten years previously. He was admitted with septicemia and developed severe adult respiratory distress syndrome on the day after admission. He survived after intensive supportive and antibiotic therapy. In addition, we cited in our report a case of postsplenectomy infection by Streptococcus milleri, fitting Zarrabi and Rosner's criteria, which