Mycobacterium Chimaera Infection from Heater Cooler Units UK

[Paleowoman]

For those in the UK, I just found this statement on the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgery’s website http://scts.org regarding the small risk of infection for patients who've had heart valve surgery since January 2013 who will be contacted by NHS England - the incubation period of this infection can be as long as four years:

"22nd January 2017 “The Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery (SCTS) wishes to extend its deepest condolences to the families of those patients who have died as a result of mycobacterium chimaera infection and those patients that have suffered ill-health after being infected.

“Patient safety is of absolute importance to SCTS. The risk to patients from surgery where heater-cooler units are used is very low and has been identified as a worldwide issue. The guidance issued to surgical centres by NHS England, Public Health England and the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in November 2015 has added further protections for patients and no further cases of the infection have been identified since.

“We welcome news that NHS England has begun a process which will see them contact patients who have had heart valve surgery since January 2013 to make them aware of the potential, very low risk of infection.”

I know some of our heart valve cousins over the other side of the pond have been contacted by their respective hospitals about this, here’s a previous thread about the infection: http://www.valvereplacement.org/foru...lating-devices

 

[FredW]

Thanks for posting this. I had not picked up on the earlier post back in November of last year. There is always something... Hopefully they took these out of service before my surgery last July.

 

[DougWyndham]

Thanks - I received my letter today. It's a small risk but good to know the symptoms and make my GP aware also

 

[Paleowoman]

I haven't had a letter yet from the hospital where I had my surgery, but on NHS Choices there is an article telling patients who had heart valve replacement surgery after January 2013 "When you next visit your GP, make sure they know you've had open heart surgery and ask them to check that your medical record includes this information." regarding the risk, though low, of mycobacterium chimaera infection:http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/mycobacterium-chimaera-infection/Pages/Introduction.aspx I printed off the article for my GP,

 

[Marko2011]

Morning,

Thanks Paleowoman for this update. I received my letter yesterday morning also. My GP also has a copy on file. What has been fairly well drummed into me, is , any unexplained fevers, flu like symptoms, etc etc, should be treated as endocarditis until proven otherwise. A little familiarisation of the condition and it's symptoms wouldn't do any harm. The risk is very low, so far.

Regards
Mark.