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Acinetobacter baumannii is one of the pathogens most involved in health care-associated infections in recent decades. Known for its ability to accumulate several antimicrobial resistance mechanisms, it possesses the oxacillinase blaoxa-23, a carbapenemase now endemic in Italy. Acinetobacter species are not frequently observed in patients with cystic fibrosis, and multidrug-resistant A. baumannii is a rare event in these patients. Non-mucoid A. baumannii carrying the blaoxa-23 gene has been sporadically detected. Here, we describe the methods used to detect blaoxa-23 in the first established case of pulmonary infection via a mucoid strain of A. baumannii producing carbapenemase in a 24-year-old cystic fibrosis patient admitted to Bambino Gesù Children's Hospital in Rome, Italy. This strain, which exhibited an extensively drug-resistant antibiotype, also showed a great ability to further increase its resistance in a short time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]