Mycobacterium Avium Pseudo-Outbreak Associated With An Outpatient Bronchoscopy Clinic: Lessons For Reprocessing

We identified a pseudo-outbreak of Mycobacterium avium in an outpatient bronchoscopy clinic following an increase in clinic procedure volume. We terminated the pseudo-outbreak by increasing the frequency of automated endoscope reprocessors (AER) filter changes from quarterly to monthly. Filter changing schedules should depend on use rather than fixed time intervals.