Recommendations to manufacturers about improving the safety of reusable medical devices and an upcoming advisory committee meeting on duodenoscope-associated infections are two efforts recently announced by the Food and Drug Administration that address the risks associated with reusable devices.
A final guidance document for industry on reprocessing reusable medical devices includes recommendations “aimed at helping device manufacturers develop safer reusable devices, especially those devices that pose a greater risk of infection,” according to the March 12 announcement. Also included in the guidance are criteria that should be met in instructions for reprocessing reusable devices, “to ensure users understand and correctly follow the reprocessing instructions,” and recommendations that manufacturers should consider “reprocessing challenges” at the early stages of the design of such devices.
The same announcement said that in mid-May, the FDA was convening a 2-day meeting of the agency’s Gastroenterology and Urology Devices Panel to discuss the recent reports of infections associated with the use of duodenoscopes in endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) procedures in U.S. hospitals.
The announcement was issued less than a month after the agency alerted health care professionals and the public about the association with duodenoscopes and the transmission of multidrug-resistant bacterial infections in patients who had undergone ERCP procedures, despite proper cleaning and disinfection of the devices. Between January 2013 and December 2014, the agency received 75 medical device adverse event reports for about 135 patients in the United States “relating to possible microbial transmission from reprocessed duodenoscopes,” according to the safety communication issued by the FDA on Feb. 19.
©CDC/ Melissa Brower
These reports and cases described in the medical literature have occurred even when manufacturer instructions for cleaning and sterilization were followed.
“Although the complex design of duodenoscopes improves the efficiency and effectiveness of ERCP, it causes challenges for cleaning and high-level disinfection,” according to the statement, which pointed out that it can be difficult to access some parts of the duodenoscopes when they are cleaned. Problems include the “elevator” mechanism at the tip of the duodenoscope, which should be manually brushed, but a brush may not be able to reach microscopic crevices in this mechanism and “residual body fluids and organic debris may remain in these crevices after cleaning and disinfection,” possibly exposing patients to serious infections if the fluids are contaminated with microbes.
The infections reported include carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), according to the first FDA statement, which did not mention whether any of the reports were fatal.
But on Feb. 18, the UCLA Health System announced that CRE may have been transmitted to seven patients during ERCP procedures, and may have contributed to the death of two of the patients. The two devices implicated in these cases are no longer used and the medical center has started to use a decontamination process “that goes above and beyond manufacturer and national standards” for the devices, the statement said. More than 100 patients who had an ERCP between October 2014 and January 2015 at UCLA have been notified they may have been infected with CRE.
The FDA statement includes recommendations for facilities and staff that reprocess duodenoscopes, for patients, and for health care professionals. One recommendation is to take a duodenoscope out of service if there is any suspicion it may be linked to a multidrug-resistant infection in a patient who has undergone ERCP.
In early March, another outbreak was reported at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, which announced that four patients who had undergone an ERCP procedure between August 2014 and January 2015 with the same duodenoscope had been infected with CRE, “despite the fact that Cedars-Sinai meticulously followed the disinfection procedure for duodenoscopes recommended in instructions provided by the manufacturer (Olympus Corporation) and the FDA.” This duodenoscope was the TJF-Q180 V model, a Cedars-Sinai spokesperson confirmed.
This particular duodenoscope has not yet been cleared for marketing, but has been used commercially, according to an FDA statement March 4 updating the duodenoscope-associated infection issue. The statement said that there was “no evidence” that the lack of clearance was associated with infections, and that the reported infections were associated with duodenoscopes from all three manufacturers of the devices used in the United States. In addition, the FDA statement noted that if the TJF-Q180 V duodenoscope was removed from the market, there may not be enough duodenoscopes to meet “the clinical demand in the United States of approximately 500,000 procedures per year.”
At the advisory panel meeting May 14-15, the FDA will ask the expert panel to discuss and make recommendations on various issues, including approaches that ensure patient safety during ERCP procedures and the effectiveness of the cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization procedures for duodenoscopes.