VA warns of possibly contaminated biopsies

VA warns veterans of possibly contaminated biopsies
DINESH RAMDEAssociated Press

MILWAUKEE - More than 22,000 veterans who underwent prostate biopsies at veterans' hospitals across the country are being warned that improperly sterilized equipment may have exposed them to deadly viruses.

No patient is known to have been infected but the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is offering free blood tests as a precaution, said VA spokesman Jim Benson. The prostate biopsy equipment includes a probe that, if improperly cleaned, could retain traces of body fluids containing the viruses that cause hepatitis or AIDS.

It's possible but unlikely that someone could get infected that way, said Michael Erdmann, chief of staff of the Milwaukee VA Medical Center.

"We're concerned for the safety of our patients, but really, the odds are really quite low," he said.

The hospital sent letters to 2,075 veterans who had the biopsy done from 1989 to 2003.
"Since then, 273 people came in to be tested and luckily all the results were negative," Erdmann said.

In April, the VA began alerting patients of medical centers in 11 states of potential inadequacies with the biopsy cleaning procedure. Since then the alert has expanded to cover 21 facilities in 18 states, from Oregon to Maine, plus Puerto Rico.

Between 22,000 and 23,000 veterans were affected, Benson said. About 7,000 vets contacted the VA after receiving the letter and about 2,000 have been tested, he said.

"It's too soon to have any information on their test results because each of the potential diseases we might be worried about require not only initial tests but confirmatory tests as well," Benson said. "Right now our first priority is getting information out to every veteran."

Dennis Maki, an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the prostate examination technique involves inserting a stainless steel scope about the diameter of a pencil into the rectum. Then doctors use a hollow needle to draw a sample from the prostate gland.

The standard sterilizing procedure called for the equipment to be flushed with a disinfecting solution, but officials grew concerned that blood and fecal residue might remain unless the tube were physically scrubbed as well.

Officials at a VA hospital in Augusta, Maine, first raised concerns in April about whether the cleaning procedure was thorough enough. The VA investigated and decided to contact veterans and offer them free blood tests.

Michael O'Rourke, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said he was satisfied with the VA's response.

"I don't know what more they can do," he said. "I'm more concerned with the data that was compromised for those 26 million veterans," referring to the personal information of veterans that was stolen from a VA employee in May.

Peter Gaytan, the director of veterans affairs for the American Legion, said his group is reaching out to veterans to make sure the VA has addressed their concerns.

"What the American Legion wants to make sure is that this mistake isn't the responsibility of overworked VA staff, and if it is, they need to hire more people," he said.
The problem wasn't manpower so much as cleaning instructions provided by the manufacturer that didn't specify the need for a brush, Erdmann said.

The equipment was made by B-K Medical Systems in Denmark. Company officials from neither B-K nor its Massachusetts-based parent company, Analogic, immediately returned phone calls by The Associated Press on Friday.

Even if the instructions didn't call for brushing, medical officials should have known it was necessary, Maki said.

"I'm really surprised and somewhat dismayed. If you have any apparatus that comes into contact with deep sterile tissues, you have to do everything you can to ensure it's sterile," he said.

Still, it's unlikely that someone would get infected from this procedure, Maki said.
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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/