Twenty-seven women who needed surgery at Charleston's Roper Hospital in Charleston, S.C., developed a bacterial infection in 2016 and 2017 that required them to undergo more surgery and months of antibiotic treatment, according to an article on The Post & Courier website.
Most of them acquired the infection after breast reconstruction surgery. Two patients developed the infection following an abdominal plastic surgery procedure and two more following a procedure related to other cancer treatment.
The water at Roper tested positive for non-tuberculous mycobacteria, but federal and state health officials have not determined why other surgical patients were not infected or how exactly the breast reconstruction patients acquired this bacteria.
Surgeons use sterile water during surgery, so it is not clear how these patients were exposed to bacteria found in the regular tap water supply.
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