Johns Hopkins Hospital May Have Spread Serious Lung Infection - Medical Alert!

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- http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA6PAEODYC.html -

 

Sunday, March 03, 2002 8:32 PM

Report: Faulty Medical Device May Have Spread Serious Lung

Infection

 

 

> Report: Faulty Medical Device May Have Spread Serious Lung Infection

> The Associated Press

> Published: Mar 3, 2002

>

> BALTIMORE (AP) - Johns Hopkins Hospital is alerting 415 patients and their

> families that a defective medical instrument may have given them a

> potentially life-threatening lung infection, a newspaper reported.

>

> Some patients who were examined by one of three contaminated bronchoscopes

> have died, but hospital officials told The (Baltimore) Sun they did not

know

> if they died from the bacteria or from their existing illnesses.

>

> The officials told the paper they have not determined how many patients

have

> been infected or died.

>

> The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug

> Administration are investigating the problem, in part to determine if the

> device has triggered outbreaks elsewhere, The Sun reported.

>

> " We're aware of this situation and we're looking into it, " FDA spokesman

> Lawrence Bachorik told The Associated Press on Sunday.

>

> A call to a CDC spokesman was not returned Sunday.

>

> Most of those treated at Johns Hopkins were suffering from cystic

fibrosis,

> AIDS, or lung cancer, or had recently had lung transplants.

>

> Hospital officials discovered the problem after realizing that 128

patients

> had been infected with a bacterium known as pseudomonas. The number was

two

> to three times higher than the hospital would expect, said Dr. Paul J.

> Scheel Jr., vice chairman of medicine.

>

> " We don't know the cause and effect between patients who died and this

> infection, " Scheel said. " People are going through medical charts to try

to

> ascertain this. "

>

> Scheel said at least one other hospital had reported problems with the

> instrument, but he did not know the name of the hospital.

>

> The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and Baltimore City

> Health Department were trying to determine if the problem exists in other

> local hospitals.

>

> The bronchoscopes are made by Olympus America, which recalled some of them

> last November. Hopkins owns four of the defective instruments, but only

> three were found to be contaminated.

>

> The recall letter to Hopkins, dated Nov. 30, wasn't immediately acted on

> because it was mistakenly addressed to the loading dock of the Hopkins

> physiology department, the paper said.

>

> Officials at Olympus did not return a phone message seeking comment

Sunday.

>

> In recall letters, Olympus described the defective instruments as having a

> loose valve that trapped bacteria.

>

> Physicians use the instruments to perform bronchoscopies, which inspect a

> patient's lungs and take tissue samples. A thin, tube-like instrument,

about

> the width of a pencil, is placed through the nose or mouth and into the

lungs.

>

> The tube has a tiny camera at the tip and uses fiber-optic technology to

> produce pictures of airways.

>

> About 460,000 patients undergo the procedure every year in the United

States.

>

>

>