In the UK, there has been a very rare case of cancer development in two patients who have been transplanted from an organ donated by a cancer patient. The case was described by BBC News.
One of the transplant patients is dead. This is Tom Tyreman, 63, from Stockton near Newcastle, who received a liver from a woman who died of an embolism at Freeman Hospital. Pauline Hunt, 49, from Kilmarnock, Scotland, also developed cancer, this time of the kidney. This patient is still fighting for her life.
Transplant patients tend to be at greater risk of cancer because they are taking drugs that suppress the immune system (given to reduce the risk of transplant rejection). Very rarely, but it happens that transplanted organs contain cancerous cells or a small tumor that has not been detected prior to transplantation.
This was the case with Tom Tyreman and Pauline Hunt. Tyreman had a liver transplant with an invisible tumor. The man died in February 2018, just a few months after the transplant.
A spokesman for the NHS Blood and Transplant Service explains that every effort is made to avoid such situations: the donor’s medical records are checked and, if in doubt, a biopsy of the organ harvested for transplantation is performed. The trouble is that there is very little time for this kind of procedure, when taken as soon as possible, it must be transplanted.
Jane Bird, sister of the late Tyreman, argues that despite the difficulties, even more rigorous examinations of the transplanted organs should be performed. “It’s hard to accept that nowadays they are not possible” – she added.
A similar situation has already happened in Europe. Three patients died after having had organs transplanted from a 53-year-old woman with undiagnosed breast cancer (she herself died of a stroke). The “American Journal of Transplantation” reported this a few months ago.
DNA tests were carried out to confirm if this was the case. After comparing the genetic material of recipient cancer cells with the donor organs, it was revealed that their genetic profile is similar.
The organs of the deceased woman were transplanted into five patients. The first of them to receive her heart died five months later from sepsis. His death, however, was not related to cancer.
The first cancer was detected 16 months after transplantation in a 42-year-old woman who had both lungs transplanted. She developed bone metastases and died two years after the surgery. The other two cancer patients were a man and a woman who had had their kidneys transplanted from the same donor. The cancer appeared in them 6 years after transplantation.
In a man, a transplanted kidney was removed in 2011 and he was given chemotherapy. This patient is still alive. On the other hand, a woman who also had a kidney transplant and a second patient who received a liver from the same donor with breast cancer died.