Fourth patient infected during UPMC mold outbreak dies
Che DuVall, one of four patients who became ill last year during a mold crisis in two UPMC hospitals, died over the weekend, a family attorney said Sunday.
DuVall, 70, of Perryopolis died Saturday morning in UPMC Presbyterian, said Brendan Lupetin of the Downtown law firm Meyers Evans and Associates. DuVall is the fourth organ transplant patient to die after contracting a fungal infection while being treated in UPMC's world-renowned transplant program.
“Our thoughts are with the family during this very difficult time,” Lupetin said.
UPMC suspended its transplant program for six days in September after identifying mold in four patients at Presby and UPMC Montefiore, both in Oakland.
“It is with great sadness that we confirm the passing of Mr. DuVall, and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family, as well as to our doctors and nurses who have worked with great compassion and skill to care for him,” said UPMC spokeswoman Allison Hydzik. “We again want to reassure our patients that we have taken every possible precaution to make our hospitals as safe as is humanly possible and have followed all recommendations made by federal and state regulators.”
DuVall, a Vietnam War veteran, retired glass cutter and father of three, had remained in Presby since August when he underwent a double lung transplant for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He subsequently contracted a fungal infection in the hospital's cardiothoracic intensive care unit and never recovered. Doctors diagnosed the infection in September and removed two mold-infiltrated lobes of his new lungs.
“I would like to say goodbye to my best friend of the past 40 years,” DuVall's wife, Karen, wrote Sunday on Facebook. “I will love and miss you every day.”
DuVall was treated in the same room of Presby's cardiothoracic ICU in which two heart transplant patients, who had fungal infections, received treatment before dying. Tracy Fischer, 47, of Erie died Oct. 1, 2014, and an unnamed patient died in June.
A federal investigation into the problem pointed to a ventilation system in that room as a possible transmission mode.
A report in December by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Pennsylvania Department of Health explained that a “negative pressure” system was designed to pull outside air into the room. Hospitals generally use such systems to prevent infectious air from leaking out of a room. UPMC has since said it no longer will house transplant patients, who have compromised immune systems, in negative pressure rooms.
The CDC did not offer an explanation for the death of a liver transplant patient on Sept. 17 in UPMC Montefiore. That death prompted the transplant program's suspension.
Through attorneys Lupetin and Jerry Meyers, DuVall and his wife sued UPMC for negligence in January and claimed that keeping him in a negative pressure room most likely led to his fungal infection.
UPMC has identified the types of mold in the four patients as rhizomucor, lichtheimia and rhizopus, part of a family of molds known as mucormycetes.
Hospital-acquired fungal infections sometimes occur in transplant patients with suppressed immune systems.
Funeral arrangements have not been completed.
Ben Schmitt is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7991 or bschmitt@tribweb.com.
