Abstract
Colonization with Mycobacterium chimaera and other nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) has been reported for heater-cooler devices (HCD) produced by several manufacturers. Up to now, exclusively LivaNova (London, UK) HCDs have been associated with M. chimaera infections after cardiac surgery. The vast majority of studies on HCD colonization were cross-sectional. We were interested in longitudinal dynamics of mycobacterial growth in HCD water samples and analyzed data of a prospective mycobacterial surveillance of five LivaNova 3T HCDs. Nontuberculous mycobacteria were isolated in 319 (48.0%, 21 water samples grew more than one mycobacterial species) of a total of 665 water samples. The most frequently detected species were M. chimaera (N= 247/319, 77.4%), Mycobacterium gordonae (46/319, 14.4%) and Mycobacterium paragordonae (34/319, 10.7%). Detection rates increased longitudinally for any NTM (odds ratio (OR) per year in use: 1.60, 95% CI 1.17-2.24, P<0.001) and for M. chimaera (OR per year in use: 1.67, 95% CI 1.11-2.57, P<0.01).
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