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• MultiCare patients not at risk in recent meningitis outbreak

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  You may have heard in the news about the current outbreak of fungal meningitis among patients in a number of states who have received an epidural steroid injection.

  We have confirmed that MultiCare Health System does not use the methylprednisolone acetate products that were produced at the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass., that has been implicated in this outbreak, and we are confident that no patients treated at MultiCare facilites are at direct risk from this outbreak.

  The Center for Disease Control’s interim data show that all infected patients received injection with this product.

  MultiCare Health System only uses steroid preparations from commercial manufacturers that are subject to stringent Food and Drug Administration oversight. We do not use compounding pharmacies as a source of these products.

  As the investigation into NECC continues, we have expanded our internal review of NECC products to make sure that any patients and their providers who may have been involved in the use of any NECC products beyond the methylprednisolone acetate within the past year have been notified. We have identified two possible patients in our system who may have received products or solutions produced by NECC and those patients and physicians are being contacted for follow-up evaluations at this time.

  Currently we are unaware of any known complications from the use of these products, and we have removed all NECC products from our system and are no longer using any products of any kind derived from this compounding pharmacy.

  Posted on Oct 9, 2012 in