Cardiothoracic surgery
This leaflet is for patients under the care of the Cardiothoracic Surgery Team considering heart surgery.
Introduction
You are considering heart surgery to improve your health and life expectancy. Your surgical team will discuss the risks and benefits of your proposed surgery.
This leaflet is to provide you with new information, in line with the NHS duty of candour, on the risk of infection associated with your planned surgery. Although the overall infection risk remains unchanged, we recently have become aware of a new infection associated with heart surgery.
This new risk is extremely small. Approximately 1 in 5,000 patients having valve surgery might be affected, and fewer than 1 in 100,000 patients having CABG (bypass operations). In this unit (James Cook University Hospital) there have been no such infections in the last 25 years.
This level of risk is so small that in most cases surgery should not be delayed as the risks of delaying surgery are greater than proceeding. If surgery is delayed there is the greater risk of heart failure, cardiac arrest and deterioration in overall health.
Further information
During heart operations the body is cooled and warmed by the heart lung machine
(cardiopulmonary bypass machine). To do this, the bypass machine is connected to a heater and cooler unit, which is kept in the operating theatre.
Tests on these heater/cooler units in Europe and the UK have revealed a growth of the bacterium Mycobacterium chimaera (which is a type of bacteria that is common in the environment but does not frequently cause human infections).
There have been reports of this organism causing serious infections in a very small number of patients having operations on their heart valves, in some cases several years after the operation. In the United Kingdom fourteen cases of such infections have been reported since 2007. Given that around 56,000 heart operations on bypass are performed each year of which approximately 20,000 per year have been heart valve operations, this represents a very small risk.
Heart centres have now increased their decontamination procedures for heater cooler units. All heart centres are testing their heater and cooler units for evidence of this bacterium.
There is no evidence that extra antibiotics during surgery will give any further protection. Should you become unwell following surgery, we will ensure that you have the appropriate investigation and treatment.
Further reading
- Visit the NHS website
- The related news story: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mycobacterial-infections-associated-with-cardiopulmonary-bypass-surgery
Contact us
If you require further information please contact:
Telephone: 01642 282899
Email: [email protected]
Patient experience
South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust would like your feedback. If you wish to share your experience about your care and treatment or on behalf of a patient, please contact The Patient Experience Department who will advise you on how best to do this.
This service is based at The James Cook University Hospital but also covers the Friarage Hospital in Northallerton, our community hospitals and community health services.
To ensure we meet your communication needs please inform the patient experience department of any special requirements, for example; braille or large print by emailing: [email protected]