A NY hospital has been cleared in a lawsuit after a kidney transplant patient developed cancer and died after receiving an organ from someone who had the disease but had not yet been diagnosed.

The patient was a 37-year old diabetic who had been on dialysis for 4 years before he got a transplant from a donor who died of a stroke. The cancer was not diagnosed until the donor’s body was autopsied. The surgeon for the transplant patient learned of the cancer 6 weeks later and advised the patient to keep the kidney because the risk of a male catching uterine cancer seemed low.

There seems to be little doubt that cancer acquired from the transplant caused his death, but the hospital argued that it was a form of immune-system cancer that transplant patients sometimes get — while another cancer specialist concluded that he had acquired uterine cancer.

This was a tragic result for all parties, and we want to once again extend our deepest sympathies to the Liew family,” the hospital said in a statement. “Unfortunately, in this case, the outcome of the transplant could not have been predicted or even imagined by our transplant team.”

The lawyer for the patient’s widow says she is not bitter at the loss and is glad that the case raised awareness of the issue.

Hospital CLEARED In Cancerous Kidney Transplant Case [AP via Huffington Post]

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