Sick Iraq war veteran dies after being given smoker's cancerous lungs in transpl

[thundley4]

An Iraq war veteran died after a hospital transplant gave him a pair of cancerous lungs donated by a smoker.
Matthew Millington, 31, a corporal in the Queen's Royal Lancers, had the operation to save him from an incurable lung condition.
But the donated organs - from someone who smoked 30 to 50 roll-up cigarettes a day - gave him cancer.
Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, which carried out the transplant, said early X-rays on the organs did not find any sign of cancer.
In fact it had been missed. The tumour was discovered only after six months. Drugs to ensure Mr Millington's body accepted the new organs actually sped up its spread.
The soldier from Stoke-on-Trent was given radiotherapy but finally died at home in February last year.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219542/Sick-soldier-dies-given-smokers-lungs-transplant.html#ixzz0TgFT0FRZ

  So sad that his family was given hope only to see it taken away.

[RightCoast]

Looking forward to obamacare!

[TheSarge]

This is what we have to look forward to.

[Chris_]

How sad for the family I just want to cry for them

[thundley4]

I think the fault of the NIH or whatever in this case, was choosing the lungs or any organ from a heavy smoker. They did perform tests to check the health of the lungs.   That being said, I wonder if the family would have still taken the chance or would they have waited?

I wonder if anti-rejection drugs have been shown to accelerate cancer in other cases.

[Deuce]

I think the fault of the NIH or whatever in this case, was choosing the lungs or any organ from a heavy smoker. They did perform tests to check the health of the lungs.   That being said, I wonder if the family would have still taken the chance or would they have waited?

I wonder if anti-rejection drugs have been shown to accelerate cancer in other cases.

Yeah, it seems like a poor decision. They did test the lungs, but clearly its not a foolproof test. Reading the article, he had been told in 2006 he had about two years to live. The transplant was in April 2007. He probably had some time, but it wasn't much. Damn, I don't know what I would have done had I known about the lungs. The problem with a lot of this is that we have to trust the doctor. They went to years of training and have to explain the situation to us in like ten minutes.

Anti-rejection drugs are usually immuno-suppressant, right? My cancer knowledge is extremely vague, but I thought radiotherapy broke apart the DNA of the cancer cell or something to prevent it from dividing. I don't know how the immune system plays into all of that.