Why This Vital Heart-Surgery Device Poses Major Risk, American Journal of Infection Control Reveals
More than a third of heater-cooler devices used in the open-heart surgery may be contaminated with deadly bacteria, a recent study found.
Thirty-three of 89 (37 percent) heater-cooler units (HCUs) assessed between July 2015 and December 2016 tested positive for Mycobacterium chimaera (M. chimaera), a bacterium associated with fatal infections in open-heart surgery patients, according to the research presented at the 44th Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). HCUs control the temperature of a patient's blood and organs during heart bypass surgery. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) previously have issued safety warnings that a widely used brand of HCUs might be contaminated during manufacturing, putting patients at risk for life-threatening infections.
Thirty-three of 89 (37 percent) heater-cooler units (HCUs) assessed between July 2015 and December 2016 tested positive for Mycobacterium chimaera (M. chimaera), a bacterium associated with fatal infections in open-heart surgery patients, according to the research presented at the 44th Annual Conference of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). HCUs control the temperature of a patient's blood and organs during heart bypass surgery. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) previously have issued safety warnings that a widely used brand of HCUs might be contaminated during manufacturing, putting patients at risk for life-threatening infections.