| notes from the field: mycobacterium chimaera contamination of heater-cooler devices used in cardiac surgery - united states. | in the spring of 2015, investigators in switzerland reported a cluster of six patients with invasive infection with mycobacterium chimaera, a species of nontuberculous mycobacterium ubiquitous in soil and water. the infected patients had undergone open-heart surgery that used contaminated heater-cooler devices during extracorporeal circulation (1). in july 2015, a pennsylvania hospital also identified a cluster of invasive nontuberculous mycobacterial infections among open-heart surgery patients ... | 2016 | 27740609 |