2nd Liver Transplant Patient Dies : Escondido Man, 42, Received New Organ April 1

The only surviving patient to have received a new liver through UC San Diego Medical Center’s fledgling liver transplant program died Sunday, five weeks after the death of the first and only other patient in the program.

Roy Shelbourne, a 42-year-old father of two from Escondido, died of liver failure, said hospital spokeswoman Pat JaCoby. She said that she did not know precisely what caused the failure and that the head of the transplant team was unavailable for comment.

“The only thing that I could add is that we are planning to continue the program,” JaCoby said. Of the two patients’ deaths, she added, “This isn’t unusual. Apparently, it’s happened at other locations when the programs have started up. We feel very secure in having a top-notch transplant team.”

Wife Supports Effort

Shelbourne’s wife, Linda, also expressed complete confidence in the surgical team, the hospital staff and the liver transplant technology. She called the team members “wonderful, wonderful people” and “some of the most terrific people I have ever met.”

“We are suggesting that anyone that wishes to further this program, the one thing that they can do is donate blood in (Roy Shelbourne’s) name to the community blood bank in Escondido for the liver transplant program,” Mrs. Shelbourne said in a telephone interview.

She said she had become such a strong believer in organ transplantation that “I’m almost to the point of carrying organ donation cards in my car” to give out to people. She also said she intended to help the UCSD transplant program by working with the families of future transplant recipients.

“For once in our lives, we were in the right place at the right time,” Mrs. Shelbourne said.

Shelbourne, who before the transplant had been suffering from chronic active hepatitis, received a new liver April 1 in a 14-hour operation. He had remained hospitalized at the Hillcrest center until his death.

Meanwhile, the first patient, a middle-age Linda Vista woman who had received a new liver in early March, underwent a second transplant April 6 after her body rejected the first organ. She died April 18 of causes related to her body’s rejection of the second organ.

Nevertheless, JaCoby said Tuesday that the hospital is considering several candidates for liver transplants. She said none has reached the nationwide waiting list for donated organs because they “haven’t been approved yet by all the committees here.”

Only Program in City

UCSD’s liver transplant program is the only one in San Diego, and one of only three in California. (The other two are at UC Davis and UCLA.) However, it follows an earlier program at Sharp Memorial Hospital that was terminated after the deaths of five of the first six liver transplant patients.

Liver transplants are among the most difficult of all surgical procedures.

Since the first successful liver transplant in the late 1960s, more than 1,000 have been done in the United States and Europe. But until the introduction of cyclosporine in the early 1980s, only 20% to 40% of all recipients survived even one year.

Authorities say that use of the drug, combined with improved patient selection and operative techniques, now results in an overall one-year survival rate of 60% to 80%. Patients must remain on anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives.

The operation and postoperative care of liver-transplant patients also is very expensive. Jacoby estimates that the hospital will have spent $160,000 on the first patient, whose bill the hospital is footing because she had no insurance.

Roy Shelbourne, whose identity was withheld until Tuesday, had moved to San Diego County from Orange County in 1980. He worked as a senior field engineering technician for a geotechnical firm, testing soils for their stability, his wife said.

He was active in the California Jaycees, Trinity Episcopal Church in Escondido, and the Escondido girls softball league, where a memorial scholarship fund is being established in his name. He is survived by his wife, a son and a daughter, three brothers and his mother, Catherine.