A 69-year-old man in Arizona, United States died after receiving a liver transplant from a donor whose undiagnosed cancer was transferred through the organ.
The patient, whose name was not disclosed, suffered from cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, a type of liver cancer. Doctors initially tried less invasive treatments for his condition but eventually recommended a transplant due to worsening liver function.
The surgery, performed at Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, was initially successful. However, four months after the procedure, routine scans revealed new tumors in the transplanted liver.
Further testing confirmed the tumors were not related to the patient’s original liver cancer. Instead, the new cancer originated from the donor, a 50-year-old man with a history of smoking but no known cancer diagnoses.
“The tumor features were distinctly different from the patient’s prior HCC, and a PCR test strongly suggested the metastatic carcinoma in the liver originated from the donor,” doctors wrote in the case report published in The Oncologist.
The donor had undergone standard pre-donation screening, which did not detect any tumors or signs of cancer. The new cancer was later identified as donor-derived metastatic lung cancer.
As the cancer spread, the patient became ineligible for another liver transplant. His medical team reduced anti-rejection medications, which were essential to prevent the body from rejecting the donor liver, to slow the cancer’s progression. Despite chemotherapy showing initial stabilization, subsequent scans revealed aggressive progression.
“Progression of liver metastases and reduced immunosuppressive agents led to liver failure and the patient’s death,” the report stated. He passed away six months after the transplant.
Cases of cancer transmitted through organ transplants are extremely rare, with only a few documented instances in medical literature. A 2013 study noted there is no precise estimate of the risk due to the limited data.
