Infection Is Fatal to Girl Given 5-Organ Transplant

Tabatha Foster, the world’s longest survivor of a five-organ transplant, died Wednesday after an infection caused her heart, kidneys and liver to fail, a spokeswoman at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh said.

The 3-year-old girl from Madisonville, Ky., died in the hospital’s intensive-care unit, spokeswoman Sue Cardillo said. “It was system failure, everything. It was like a chain reaction,” she said.

Tabatha’s parents, Roy and Sandra Foster, were at her side and had told doctors not to try to revive her if her heart stopped, the spokeswoman said.

“I was a little surprised that it ended as suddenly as this,” said Dr. Thomas E. Starzl, director of transplant surgery at Children’s Hospital and the affiliated Presbyterian-University Hospital. “Even though she was a child of enormous emotional and physical strength, it was just slowly giving away.”

The toddler received a new liver, small intestines, pancreas and parts of a stomach and colon during a 15-hour experimental operation that ended last Nov. 1.

“Tabatha has always been a fighter and has always been very, very spunky, but this might be a time when she just can’t fight anymore,” Cardillo had said earlier Wednesday.

Well-wishers from around the country, including President Reagan and Frank Sinatra, donated more than $350,000 to help meet her medical expenses. Tabatha also received box loads of toys, cards and notes from schoolchildren.

Because of her intestinal deformity, doctors were forced to remove 95% of her small bowel three days after she was born. She was placed on a highly concentrated liquid diet, which damaged her liver.

Doctors determined it would be easier to replace the entire five-organ group rather than just her liver and small intestine. Similar procedures had been performed only twice before in the world, and both patients died within a few days.

Doctors ruled out the possibility of another transplant because Tabatha was too weak to withstand the operation, Cardillo said.