Patients Who Developed Superbug Infections After an Olympus Scope Procedure May Be Owed Money After Device Design Failures

An endoscopy — where a doctor threads a flexible camera down your throat to look at your digestive system — is supposed to help you get better. But for hundreds of patients across the United States, a routine procedure using Olympus duodenoscopes led to something devastating: infection with a drug-resistant “superbug” that can be difficult or impossible to treat.

Beginning around 2013, major hospitals including Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, and Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Illinois reported outbreaks of CRE — carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae — a bacterial infection with very high mortality rates that health experts have called one of the most serious infectious disease threats in modern medicine.

The FDA traced many of these outbreaks to Olympus TJF-Q180V duodenoscopes. The scope’s complex design made it nearly impossible to fully sterilize between patients using standard hospital reprocessing procedures — and Olympus allegedly knew this. (FDA Safety Communication, February 19, 2015; U.S. Senate HELP Committee Report, January 13, 2016.)

What the Olympus Scope Lawsuit Is About

Duodenoscopes are specialized endoscopes used in a procedure called ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography), which examines the pancreas, bile ducts, and gallbladder. These scopes have a complex tip design with an elevator mechanism that allows the doctor to direct tools during the procedure.

The problem: that elevator channel cannot be fully cleaned or sterilized using standard hospital disinfection methods. According to the FDA’s February 2015 safety communication, “the complex design of duodenoscopes may impede effective reprocessing” — meaning bacteria from one patient could survive the cleaning process and infect the next patient. (FDA Safety Communication, Feb. 19, 2015.)

CRE infections linked to these scopes can be extremely difficult to treat with standard antibiotics. At UCLA alone, patients were infected and deaths were reported following procedures involving these devices. A U.S. Senate Health Committee report in 2016 found that Olympus had known about the sterilization problems for years before disclosing them to hospitals and patients. (U.S. Senate HELP Committee Report, Jan. 13, 2016.)

Who May Qualify

You may qualify if the following describe your situation:

1. You had an ERCP procedure or other endoscopic procedure using a duodenoscope at a hospital.
2. After the procedure, you were diagnosed with a CRE infection (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae), ESBL infection, or another drug-resistant bacterial infection.
3. Your infection required hospitalization, serious medical treatment, or caused lasting harm.

You may also qualify if a family member died following a hospital-acquired superbug infection after an endoscopic procedure.

What Could This Mean for You?

If you qualify, you may be owed money for medical costs of treating the infection, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other losses connected to the hospital-acquired infection. Families of patients who died may have wrongful death cases.

We will not quote you a specific number. What any individual case may be worth depends on your diagnosis, the severity of treatment required, your specific history, and how your case resolves. Those facts are unique to every person.

Filing Deadline

Statutes of limitations vary by state. In most states, the clock starts from when you knew or should have known the infection was connected to your endoscopic procedure. If the procedure was years ago but the connection was only recently discovered, you may still have options.

Once a deadline passes, you cannot recover — even if you clearly would have qualified. The case check is free and takes two minutes. Don’t wait to find out where you stand.

How the Process Works

Step 1 — Fill out the free form

No cost, no commitment. Takes about two minutes. A real person on our intake team reviews every submission.

Step 2 — A lawyer reviews your procedure history and infection diagnosis

If it looks like you may qualify, someone reaches out. They will go over when the procedure took place, what hospital, and what infection you developed.

Step 3 — If you qualify, attorneys work on contingency

You pay nothing unless you win. If your case doesn’t recover money, you owe nothing.

Step 4 — Your case is filed

Your case is filed and pursued. The law firm handles the legal work. Most clients never have to travel or appear in a courtroom.

Common Questions

Sources

1. FDA Safety Communication: “Olympus Medical Systems Duodenoscopes — Design May Impede Effective Reprocessing.” February 19, 2015. U.S. Food & Drug Administration.
2. U.S. Senate HELP Committee Report: “Preventable Tragedies: Superbugs and How Ineffective Monitoring of Medical Device Safety Fails Patients.” January 13, 2016.
3. Wendorf, K.A. et al. “Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography–Associated AmpC Escherichia coli Outbreak.” Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology, 2015.