Yersinia enterocolitica Infection of a Prosthetic Knee Joint. Case Report and Review of the Literature on Deep Sited Infections Caused by Y. enterocolitica

Copyright © 2013 Päivi Jalava-Karvinen et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Prosthetic joint infection is a rare manifestation of Yersinia enterocolitica. We report a case of a patient presenting with fever and a purulent infection in his prosthetic knee joint caused by Y. enterocolitica. He had been operated in 1990 for arthrosis of the right knee. Re-operation was performed in 2007 for loosening of the prosthesis. Seven months later, following progressively increasing knee pain, he became acutely febrile and a purulent knee joint infection was diag-nosed. Y. enterocolitica was isolated from the joint fluid. Serum antibodies against Y. enterocolitica were also positive. He was treated with debridement, replacement of the liner component of the prosthesis and a long course of intravenous antimicrobial therapy. The infection was thought to be in a chronic suppressive state. The final outcome after all therapy was good