Postoperative Pancreatic Abscess Due to Haemophilus influenzae

Pancreatic abscess is one of the major complications of acute pancreatitis and occurs in 1.8%-8.5% of cases. The etiology of these abscesses is polymicrobial in about one-half of the patients whose enteric flora is predominantly mixed. The most commonly isolated organisms are Escherichia coli, Enterobacter species, Klebsiella species, and Enterococcus species. Kennedy et al. described a postoperative pancreatic abscess due to Plesiomonas shigelloides in a patient who had visited the Philippines 4 weeks before undergoing elective cholecystectomy and before a pancreatic biopsy was performed. We report a case of postoperative pancreatic abscess caused by Haemophilus influenzae. H. influenzae was isolated in pure culture from the pancreatic abscess, infected aortic graft, and periaortic tissue. To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of pancreatic abscess due to H. influenzae.