With over 100 cases reported since 2013, Mycobacterium chimaera prosthetic valve endocarditis and disseminated disease have been linked to contaminated heater-cooler units (HCSs) used during cardiac surgery manufactured at the LivaNova factory in the UK. The current article outlines the epidemiological findings from the investigation. The Prologue Since 2013, over 100 severe cases of chimaera infections, often fatal have been notified in four European countries – Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK; the USA and Australia, all of the patients who had undergone cardiothoracic surgery.
Initial epidemiological investigations suggested a link to the use of specific heater-cooler units (HCUs) that are used to control the temperature within extracorporeal circulation during cardiac surgery. The possibility of a global outbreak caused by HCUs sparked investigations by the…
