Is 2 weeks of antibiotic therapy enough to treat elderly patients with nontyphoid Salmonella bacteremia? A case report of fatal endovascular infection

Nontyphoid Salmonella (NTS) can cause invasive diseases in the elderly. Notably, the most feared complication of NTS bacteremia is endovascular infection. The risk factors for infected aortic aneurysm include old age and atherosclerosis. Extended use of antimicrobial therapy (> 2 weeks) for NTS bacteremia should be considered for those who demonstrate the risk factors for endovascular infection, even when a metastatic focus is clinically elusive. Herein, we report the case of a 75-year-old patient with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and myocardial infarction who died of an infected aortic aneurysm despite 3 weeks of antibiotic therapy that was administered to treat the initial NTS bacteremia. Copyright (C) 2012, Taiwan Society of Microbiology. Published by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.