Horn with nasty microbes

Olga Marie has finally got rid of her problem. Senior scientist Catrine Ahlén identified the source of the infection as Olga Marie's baritone horn. Photo: Rune Petter Ness

An active young girl was suddenly affected by a serious pulmonary illness. A mystery - until a specialist in microorganisms checked out her brass-band instrument.

By Svein Tønseth
Episodes of pneumonia kept returning, and the girl's lungs kept filling up with mucous. But now, the two-year-long nightmare illness is over for seventeen-year-old Olga Marie Lerflaten. The turning point came when SINTEF research scientist Catrine Ahlén started hunting for bacteria.
Ahlén has dedicated her research life to identifying links between health problems and microbial growth in people's immediate environment. She only heard about Olga Marie's illness by accident, and she immediately asked for permission to take samples from the young brass-band player's baritone horn.
Ahlén found a rather unusual bacterial flora in the instrument, a flora dominated by a type of bacterium which she had previously found in infected equipment in offshore diving systems. She immediatley analysed mucous samples from the girl's lungs, where she found the same flora. Subsequent tests of new mucous samples produced the same results. The findings led to Olga Marie being put on a special course of antibiotics - and the medicine worked. Now the seventeen-year-old girl feels perfectly well again.
In the year before she started on antibiotics she suffered seven episodes of pneumonia, which were treated in the traditional way. Between infections she had to undergo regular periods of training to cough up the mucous that kept filling her lungs.

Warning for Norway's brass bands
Ahlén feels that this case has an important lesson for Norway's brass bands Olg Marie's school band lent her an instrument from its store; the illness appeared soon after.
"I don't want to frighten anyone off of playing wind instruments. But they need to be cleaned regularly. And it is particularly important that instruments that have been out of circulation for a while should be thoroughly washed before they are handed out again," says Ahlén. She recommends that bends and valves should be left dismantled for a while after washing in order to allow the instrument to dry out inside.
Olga Marie continued to play even after she became ill - in order to increase her lung capacity. Ahlén believes that this meant that the bacteria in her body were being continually replaced. The SINTEF scientist thinks it unlikely that the girl picked up the bacteria from somewhere else and then infected the instrument in turn. "All the signs suggest that the bacterial growth started in the instrument," she says.

From despair to happiness
Olga Marie does not hide the fact that she is grateful to Catrine Ahlén for getting involved, since she had resigned herself to a future with a lower quality of life.
"Now I can live a normal life again," says Olga Marie Lerflaten, smiling broadly.

Contact: Catrine Ahlén, SINTEF Unimed
Tel: +47 73 59 23 56
Email: Catrine.Ahlen@unimed.sintef.no