Contaminated Dental Surgery Equipment Source Of Legionnaire’s Disease Death

Italy—This week’s issue of The Lancet describes a case report of an 82-year-old woman in Italy who died of Legionnaire’s disease after becoming infected with L pneumophila at her dentist. This case has prompted the authors – led by Dr Maria Luisa Ricci at the Instituto Superiore di Sanita, Rome, Italy, to call for various control measures at dental surgeries to prevent similar incidents.

Suffering with fever and respiratory distress, the woman who was conscious and responsive and had no underlying disease, was admitted in February 2011, to the intensive care unit of the “G.B. Morgagni-Pierantoni Hospital, Department of emergency Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Unit, Foril, Italy.

The patient had been at home for the majority of the time during the 2 to 10 day incubation period, leaving only twice to attend dentist appointments.

The investigators took water samples from the dental practice’s tap, the tap and the high-speed turbine of the dental unit waterlines, as well as from the woman’s home (shower and taps) in order to investigate possible L pneumophila contamination. They found that samples from her home tested negative for L pneumophila, but samples from the dental practice tested positive. After laboratory experiments were conducted, results showed genomic matching between L pneumophila in the dental unit waterline and in the women’s respiratory secretions. [Source]