Summary

Rhabdomyolysis is a very rare and serious extrapulmonary manifestation of a Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. We describe a case of a 47-year-old male patient who presented with progressive dyspnoea, hypoxaemia and cough during the last 3 days. He had no relevant muscular complaints but was diagnosed with severe rhabdomyolysis for which he was treated with hyperhydration. Molecular diagnostics confirmed M. pneumoniae as the causative agent and our patient was successfully treated with doxycycline.

Only a few cases of rhabdomyolysis complicating a M. pneumoniae infection have been described, mostly in infants. In this case, typical suggestive complaints of rhabdomyolysis were absent suggesting that the complication might be underdiagnosed.