Late appearance of arterial injury caused by fracture of the neck of the humerus.

A 65-year-old man sustained a fracture of the humeral neck. Four days later he suddenly developed symptoms of occlusion of the axillary artery. The fracture was reduced and fixated and the torn intima occluding this artery was fixated. Clots were removed with a Fogarty balloon catheter. Late appearance of arterial injury is rare and we found no reports of this complication after fracture of the humeral neck.