Scripps Clinic’s First Liver Transplant Attempt Ends in Death

The first liver transplant attempted at Scripps Clinic ended in failure Thursday when the donor liver failed to work and the patient died.

Clinic officials dispatched a brief press release but would not comment on the inauspicious beginning for their planned multi-organ transplant program. Two other liver transplant programs that San Diego hospitals tried to start over the past several years were shut down after repeated failures.

Dr. John Brems, head of the Scripps organ transplant program, led the team of doctors that began the operation at 12:53 a.m. Thursday on a 47-year-old man. After several hours of surgery to connect the donor liver to the recipient, the donor organ failed to function and the patient died.

The donor liver had come from a San Diego-area traffic accident victim, a clinic spokesman said.

The clinic said it would not release any other information on the surgery until this afternoon, when surgeon Brems has scheduled a press conference.

Brems, 35, joined Scripps on July 1 from St. Louis University, where he had started a transplant program. His education included training under Dr. Ronald Busuttil, head of one of the country’s most successful liver transplant programs at UCLA.

After starting with liver transplants, Brems is planning a kidney transplant program, said spokeswoman Sue Pondrom. Under an agreement with Sharp Memorial Hospital, however, Scripps will do its heart and heart-lung transplants at Sharp.

San Diego’s previous attempts at liver transplantation occurred at UC San Diego and in a joint program between Sharp and Children’s Hospital. UCSD ended its liver transplant program in 1988 after all four initial patients died.

The Sharp/Children’s program was discontinued in 1984 after five of six patients died.