Urgent: What you need to know before an endoscopy

You may remember the shocking health crisis that was splashed across the news: Contaminated endoscopes resulted in untold numbers of patients being infected with a potentially deadly superbug.

That was three years ago — and two Congressional investigations later, there’s still no accurate reporting as to how many may have died. Names crop up now and then due to lawsuits… but considering the numbers of patients who were exposed, it’s impossible to say.

But if you’re assuming that problem was solved — and these scopes, used in a wide variety of tests and treatments (such as ones for the gall bladder, pancreas, and liver), are perfectly clean and safe — you’d be mistaken.

And that mistake could put you in jeopardy.

The scary truth is that the latest findings about these devices are telling us they’re still as potentially risky as ever.

And before undergoing any type of endoscopy procedure, there are some very important questions you need to ask.

Case NOT closed

What started as an isolated outbreak at the Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center three years ago quickly escalated to hospitals all over the country.

Endoscopes – long, flexible tubes that allow doctors to examine the GI tract — made by the Olympus Corporation were found to be contaminated with an antibiotic-resistant superbug called CRE.

But it turned out that the UCLA incident was simply the tip of a very old iceberg — one involving not just Olympus scopes, but those made by other manufacturers as well.

Outbreaks were going on at least seven years before we ever heard about the problem.

A 2008 incident in Florida, for example, infected 70 patients and killed 15. And although the hospital reported it directly to the FDA, officials there claimed that they had no record of it!

In 2012, 11 people died in Seattle, and other cases cropped up in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Hartford, Connecticut. Actually, you could probably just throw a dart at a map of the U.S. and hit the site of an outbreak.

But since we’re not hearing much of anything about this in the news any more, the problem must be solved, right?

Far from it.

Late last summer, over 500 patients who had an endoscopy procedure done at the Buffalo VA hospital received letters warning that they could be at risk for an infection due to “improperly sterilized endoscopes.”

Then, just two weeks ago, another endoscope maker, Pentax Medical, announced a recall of one model due to the possibility that “patient fluids” may leak under a cap. That, of course, could mean that contamination from someone else’s body fluids could be on the very device your doctor is putting down your throat!

Here’s what’s obvious: Despite all that’s gone on during the three years since we were first alerted to this situation, it’s still a very big issue. And what exactly has been done to make these endoscopes any safer is about as clear as mud.

So, what do you do if your doctor orders an endoscopy for you?

It may be awkward and a bit embarrassing, but you need to ask the hospital or clinic you’ll be using what its procedure is for cleaning these scopes.

One thing we do know is that cleaning with “peracetic acid” between patients appears to be one of the best ways to ensure their sterility – so that’s something you can inquire about.

Plus that, there’s even more you should know before one of those scopes ends up inside of you.

Are they using ones with disposable caps? Do they test them for contamination after cleaning… or put them in quarantine for a period to check for bacterial growth?

However you approach it, ignorance is not bliss.

Why leave something so serious to chance? Because a simple test should never become a medical emergency.

“Pentax duodenoscopes recalled for design and label changes” Megan Brooks, February 7, 2018, Medscape, medscape.com