LEWISTON – Physicians associated with the city’s two hospitals are closely monitoring 11 patients who learned in October they may have received tissue that wasn’t screened for infectious diseases.
Six St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center patients and five who received treatment at Central Maine Medical Center are among 14 Mainers who received body tissue from Biomedical Tissue Services.
Biomedical Tissue, based in New Jersey, faces 122 criminal counts after the company’s indictment earlier in connection with the alleged illegal harvesting and sale of stolen body parts.
The patients who received care at St. Mary’s and CMMC had received bone grafts as part of their surgery for back, neck or joint problems.
Three other patients received possibly tainted tissue during surgical procedures at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Representatives of St. Mary’s and CMMC said the patients are being monitored by their individual physicians. The doctors, in turn, are keeping the hospitals up to date on their patients’ progress.
Both hospitals have offered free testing for the patients going forward for up to a year. The testing is intended to detect any problems that might result from the tissue transplants.
Among the infectious diseases that could be spread by unscreened body parts are HIV and hepatitis.
Jennifer Radel, a spokeswoman for St. Mary’s, said the hospital’s infectious control staff is working with the patients’ doctors to stay on top of patient status.
She couldn’t say if any of the patients treated at St. Mary’s earlier have developed any problems as a result of the tissue use. That sort of information is confidential, she noted.
Chuck Gill, a spokesman for CMMC, said the hospital learned of the potential problem with tissue in October, about the same time that the treating surgeons learned of it.
As with St. Mary’s, Gill said CMMC is keeping track of the patients through their doctors. The hospital also has offered to perform any related testing free of charge for the patients.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration closed Biomedical Tissue Services earlier this year, citing evidence that the company failed to screen for contaminated tissue.
The agency says risk of infection is minimal, but suggested that anyone who received tissue through Biomedical in 2004 or 2005 contact their surgeon of the hospital where the procedure was conducted.
Michael Mastromarino, a former oral surgeon, and his one-time partner, Joseph Nicelli, of Staten Island, face hundreds of counts of fraud, forgery, filing false documents and other charges in connection with the case.
Mastromarino is alleged to have harvested the body parts from cadavers at Brooklyn, N.Y., area funeral homes.
Under the scheme, the funeral home directors and some medical examiners were paid up to $1,000 per corpse. The body parts, skin and tissue would fetch as much as $7,000 when sold on the open medical market.
Wire services contributed to this report.
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