Serratia marcescens sepsis outbreak caused by contaminated propofol.

We presented a sepsis outbreak caused by Serratia marcescens from contaminated propofol to raise awareness. Three patients had sepsis syndrome after chest surgery. Isolation of S marcescens from patients' respiratory and blood samples alerted us to a possible outbreak. Four syringes filled with propofol and 1 saline solution yielded S marcescens. Nine of 10 isolates from samples of patients and environment genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis were the same. Disobeying aseptic injection rules of propofol is still causing outbreaks.