Gangrenous Bowel in German Octogenarian Shows E. Coli Risk, Doctors Find

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) An elderly woman needed emergency surgery to remove half her bowel after being infected with E. coli, highlighting a life-threatening risk from the bacterium responsible for a diarrhea outbreak in Germany, doctors said.

Toxins produced by the new O104 E. coli strain cut blood supply to part of the woman’s colon, causing it to become gangrenous, according to a report yesterday in Eurosurveillance, a weekly newsletter on infectious diseases. The woman, in her 80s, also developed confusion and other neurological complications because of the infection, wrote doctors in the West German city of Muenster, where she was treated.

Their findings suggest doctors should watch for unexpected complications caused by the bowel-dwelling bug, and consider examining the gastrointestinal tract with an endoscope to help diagnose cases. Almost 4,000 people in more than a dozen European nations are reported to have been sickened in the outbreak and 43 people have died. Contaminated sprouts have been blamed, raising concern about intensive food production methods.

“We’re more likely to see these things because we’re becoming more reliant on mass-produced, pre-prepared foods,” said James Paton, head of the bacterial pathogenesis laboratory at the University of Adelaide in South Australia, who wasn’t involved in the study. “If you do get failure of process at one point, it can be distributed far and wide.” ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/gangrenous-bowel-shows-deadly-risk-of-e-coli.html