Bacterial infection leads to recall of cadaver transplant tissue

? A Minnesota patient apparently was infected with an unusual germ from cadaver tissue used during routine knee surgery – a discovery that has led the nation’s largest tissue bank to ask 750 hospitals around the country to return 2,400 tendons and other body parts as a precaution.

A hospital reported the bacterial infection in September to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which launched an intense, nationwide effort to search for more cases.

None have been found, but the incident shows the dangers that patients face when receiving such tissue and how dependent they are on the companies supplying it to ensure its safety.

Two scandals involving tissue suppliers have occurred in the last year, and the Food and Drug Administration has formed a task force to look for regulatory gaps that threaten safety.

The new case involves a company that many health officials and tissue company executives regard as an industry leader and standard-bearer: Musculoskeletal Transplant Foundation, or MTF, of Edison, N.J. In more than 20 years of supplying 2.7 million pieces of bone, skin and other tissues, this is the company’s first reported infection, said a spokeswoman, Cindy Gordon.

In September, the CDC notified the company that an unusual infection had been reported in a Minnesota patient. Fluid from the patient’s knee joint grew Chryseobacterium meningosepticum – a germ never previously linked to tissue or organ transplants.

The patient made a full recovery after antibiotic treatment.

Cadaver tissue is used in more than a million medical procedures each year in the United States, especially knee and back surgeries.