Rupture of vascular prosthesis in a patient with Yersinia enterocolitica bacteremia.

A case of bacteremia caused by Yersinia enterocolitica serotype 3, biotype 4, is described in a 79-year-old man with an aortic bifurcation prosthesis. He died, in spite of antibiotics, from massive intraabdominal bleeding at the infected suture site. Yersinia, like Salmonella, seems to have a special affinity for damaged endovascular tissue, although more observations will be needed to support this hypothesis.