Patients at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt Clinic may have been exposed to HIV or hepatitis B and C while undergoing routine colonoscopy procedures, according to an Oct. 12 report from Fox affiliate WZTV.
The potential infections related to a nurse not properly sterilizing equipment used to administer anesthesia, according to the report. Vanderbilt staff offered to pay for the colonoscopies for at-risk patients.
Vanderbilt told WZTV that less than 4% of endoscopy patients over the last six months may have been exposed, but did not give a specific number.
"We recently discovered an issue in how a solution was administered through the scope during a limited number of endoscopy procedures at the Vanderbilt Clinic. We immediately corrected the issue and reported it to the Tennessee Department of Health. We are in the process of notifying patients who had an endoscopy procedure and may have been affected," Vanderbilt said in a statement to the news outlet.
Patients have already expressed plans to file a lawsuit against the system.