Dive Brief:
- A patient who had two lobes of his newly transplanted lungs removed after mold infected his wounds has sued the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for professional negligence in failing to prevent the rare infection.
- Seventy-year-old Che DuVall was only survivor of four organ transplant patients who developed the mold-related infection mucormycosis at UPMC Presbyterian in September 2015.
- The complaint, filed Dec. 31, 2015, in Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, seeks a jury trial and damages.
Dive Insight:
This lawsuit alleges UPMC “knew or should have known that fungi … could cause serious and fatal infections in humans, especially in immune-suppressed patients.” Further, the hospital “should have known that delays in adequate identification of fungal infections … negatively affect patient survival,” the complaint says.
A preliminary investigation of the four cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to identify a root cause of the infections, which occurred between 2014 and 2015. Three of the patients — including DuVall — were treated in a negative pressure room, which draws air from surrounding areas that may have harbored mold. A final CDC report is due this summer.
Housing the immune-suppressed DuVall in a negative pressure environment “vastly increased his risk of contracting a myriad of life-threatening infections, including that which befell him — a rhizopus mucormycosis,” the lawsuit says.
Since the incidents, UPMC has cleared its facilities of mold and implemented a drug regimen to prevent mucormycetes infection. The hospital is also addressing CDC concerns about ongoing monitoring for mold, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.