Localized Hypertrophic Osteoarthropathy with Abdominal Aortic Prosthesis and Infection

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To the editor: Hypertrophic osteoarthropathy is frequently associated with pulmonary disease, especially bronchogenic carcinoma, but has also been related to several intraabdominal diseases, including cirrhosis, hepatic and gastrointestinal neoplasms, and inflammatory bowel disease (1). We have recently seen a patient with osteoarthropathy confined to his lower extremities in association with chronic or recurrent abdominal sepsis and an abdominal aortic graft.

A 52-year-old white man was admitted to the Philadelphia Veterans Administration Hospital in May 1974 complaining of pain of several months' duration in his left leg. In 1970 a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm had been repaired with a Dacron graft.