Travelers warned on stem cell injections in Mexico
Health experts are alerting travelers considering medical care abroad about a trio of recent drug-resistant bacterial infections caused by stem cell injections at Mexican clinics.
After stem cell treatments abroad, three Americans became infected by mycobacterium abscessus, a distant relative of the bacteria that cause tuberculosis and leprosy. In a recently published report, U.S. medical experts said they fear additional infections from the injections could have been missed.
Two patients shared bacteria with identical genetic material even though their procedures happened in different clinics. The incidents have raised concerns about stem cell injection treatments abroad. The procedure is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
The abscessus bacterium can cause infections – often in the skin or lungs – that are difficult to treat, even with antibiotics. Infections of this type are often caused by medical devices that haven’t been properly disinfected.
“Unfortunately, nobody seems to be monitoring this very closely,” said Dr. Charles Daley, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health, a hospital in Denver.
Hospitals often refer people with abscessus infections to the National Jewish Health’s mycobacterial and respiratory infections division, where Daley is chief. He and other researchers published their findings Thursday in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
In spring 2023, Daley saw an Arizona man in his 60s with an abscessus bone and joint infection on his right elbow after he’d gone for embryonic stem cell injections at a clinic in the Mexican state of Baja California the previous year.
In October 2022, a Colorado woman in her 30s traveled to a different Baja clinic to get embryonic stem cells injected into her spine to treat multiple sclerosis. She developed headaches and fevers similar to meningitis, an infection that inflames fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord.
In the third case, a Colorado man in his 60s received stem cell injections in his knees for osteoarthritis in October 2022 in Guadalajara, an urban hub in central-western Mexico. He subsequently developed infections in both knees.
All three patients had received stem cell injections.
When researchers sequenced the bacterium’s genetic material, they found the same rare sub-species of the bacterium in the cases of the Arizona man and the Colorado woman, both of whom had received injections in Baja California, but at clinics that were 167 miles apart.
Details for the third case, the Colorado man, remain unclear. Daley said cultures for his bacterium strain weren’t saved by Mexican officials.
All three patients are still in ongoing treatment for their infections. Daley said they are on a combination of antibiotics commonly used to treat pneumonia and leprosy.
“Medical tourism” is on the rise, with as many as 320,000 U.S. citizens traveling internationally for medical care each year, according to the State Department.