Cat-Scratch Disease in Minnesota

Abstract

Cat-scratch fever, a nonspecific regional lymphadenitis unknown in the medical literature prior to 1950, is now being recognized in all parts of the world. This report of 12 and 6 cases, occurring in the winters of 1955 and 1956 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, should alert physicians in this area to this disease as a cause of nonbacterial lymphadenitis, and it should alert physicians everywhere to the possible existence of such epidemic outbreaks. <h3>Previous Incidence</h3> The previous incidence of cat-scratch fever in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is unknown. Prior to this study, there had been only one reported case from this region.¹There is reason to assume that catscratch fever is not a new disease here, in that there is a relatively constant incidence of nonspecific granulomatous disease of lymph nodes observed from year to year by Twin City pathologists in the biopsy specimens they examine. Many of these