Open heart surgery since 2012 and cll

[BarbaraA2]

Hi I'm a 52 year old that had open heart surgery in 2013 for an aortic valve replacement. A year later I was diagnosed with CLL. There has recently been a recall on the heating and cooling systems used during the operations. I was wondering if anybody else has had open heart surgery in the past 4 years and has been diagnosed with some kind of leukemia/ lymphoma. From what I know the machine produced a bacteria called non tuberculosis mycobacterium. People have died all over the world from this infection that's just coming to light. Also a friend of mines brother had open heart surgery the week before I did and was diagnosed right after me with stage 4 leukemia/ lymphoma and died from an infection from it . This news was just released last week. Just wondering if there could be a connection. Thanks Happy Holidays🎄

[Cllcanada Top Poster CURE Hero]

No connection that I have seen... CLL is caused by genetic damage... viral links or causes are unclear..

Have you been tested for NTM?

labtestsonline.org/understa...

~chris

[BarbaraA2 in reply to Cllcanada]

No there just sending out letters in the next week of anyone at risk. Thanks for your reply.

[kady1270]

For those servicemen who served in Vietnam, if you have CLL it is one of the presumptive illnesses that the VA accepts responsibility for due to exposure to agent orange. I am sure they would not have done this without strong evidence of the link.

[pkpayne]

Hi Barbara, I haven't had any kind of surgery - at least prior to dx - but I was dx with MAC - mycobacterium avium complex - in 2009. I had no symptoms but it was discovered on a routine chest x-ray. I was then sent for a PET scan and then to a pulmonologist. We decided to do a bronchoscopy to get a firm dx and it took about 6 weeks to get a final dx to come back. Since I didn't have any symptoms my pulmonologist elected not to treat me. This does affect the immune system however and I often wonder if this played any part in my developing CLL - although fortunately I don't have any symptoms of that yet either. Best wishes to you.

[BarbaraA2 in reply to pkpayne]

Thanks for sharing. I'm starting to think that various things can cause your immune system to decrease making you more susceptible to cancer. I hope some day they figure it out. I wish you the best.