1. Prevalence and diagnostic challenges
M. abscessus is an environmental rapidly-growing mycobacteria (RGM) pathogenic to humans (1, 2). Clinical manifestations include pneumonia (3, 4), lymphadenitis (5, 6), skin and soft tissue infections (7), intra-vascular catheter related infections (8-11), systemic bacteremia and peritonitis (12). Cell-mediated immunity is the major protective immune response against intracellular bacteria (13, 14). Haemic malignancy and cytotoxic therapy impair phagocytic, cell-mediated and humoral immunity (7, 15) and thus predispose patients to NTM infections as in our patient. From a single-institution retrospective review in our locality, nearly all paediatric patients with NTM infection had an underlying congenital or acquired immunodeficiency (16).