A woman dies of cancer after receiving the lungs of a smoker, ensures a study

A patient with cystic fibrosis developed cancer, which she died, shortly after receiving a smoker's lungs, according to a study published in the journal Lung Cancer (in English)which warns about the risk of transplanting such organs.

The patient was followed since childhood for cystic fibrosis. After a rapid deterioration of its respiratory functions, typical of cystic fibrosis, the doctors decided, in November 2015, to carry out a lung transplantation. "According to the donor database, the transplanted lungs were taken from a 57-year-old woman who has been smoking a pack a day for 30 years"says the study, conducted by doctors from Montpellier University Hospital. According to them, the examinations performed at the time of the donor's brain death revealed no abnormality.

In June 2017, the patient grafted, sick, is admitted in unit of thoracic oncology of the university hospital of Montpellier. Two months later, she died of lung cancer without any therapy being attempted. According to the study, the symptoms strongly recall those of cancer caused by smoking.

"The short delay between lung transplantation and the appearance of the first radiological abnormality suggests that carcinogenesis began during the life of the donor"add the authors of the work. A cancer whose growth would have been greatly accelerated by the immunosuppressive treatments that the patient followed to avoid rejection of her new lungs. According to Dr. Jean-Louis Pujol and his colleagues, "given the relatively long latency of lung cancer, we suggest that transplants from smoker (or recently arrested) donors be considered with caution".

This case "exceptional", however, is not unprecedented, reports the blog Réalités Biomédicales, hosted by The world. "Several cases of cancerous disease occurring after solid organ transplantation have been described in the medical literature".