Kidney transplant should have given me a new lease of life, not terminal cancer
A TRANSPLANT patient has been told she has contracted an aggressive cancer from the donor kidney she received.
Pauline Hunt claims she was informed she is one of at least two people who were diagnosed with the deadly disease after getting infected organs.
The other person died only weeks after getting a new liver and now 49-year-old Mrs Hunt has been told she has cancer of the abdomen and lymph nodes – and does not know how long she has to live.
She said: ‘I’ve been told I am too ill for chemotherapy. I’ve lost family members to cancer and know what awaits me.
‘I have told the doctors I don’t want to know how long I’ve got.’
Doctors running the NHS transplant service have insisted all possible checks were done in the time available but Mrs Hunt, who married husband Gordon in hospital, has called for an inquiry.
Mrs Hunt, from Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, said: ‘My transplant should have given me a new lease of life. Instead, it gave me a death sentence.
‘When I was told that I had to have the new kidney removed because another organ recipient had died from cancer, I was panic-stricken. I was terrified. I was in tears. I was told I had no choice. My kidney had to come out.’
She underwent emergency surgery to remove the organ after another transplant patient, a man from Newcastle, died of cancer after receiving a liver from the same donor. But it emerged Mrs Hunt is now fighting cancer of her lymph nodes.
She said: ‘I’m still in shock and can’t stop crying and worrying about how long I have left.’
Mrs Hunt received her kidney transplant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow in December of last year.
But within days, she began suffering health issues, including potentially lethal blood clots and the deadly infection sepsis.
On February 7, she underwent further surgery and the donor kidney was removed.
But after tests, specialists gave her the devastating news that the transplant had ‘introduced a malignancy which has rapidly spread’. Tests on the donor’s other kidney also showed cancer. Mrs Hunt said: ‘I don’t understand how the system failed to spot a cancer that is so aggressive.
‘It spread very quickly through my abdomen and lymph nodes, helped along by the drugs I’d been given to suppress my immune system so the transplant wouldn’t be rejected by my body.’
Mrs Hunt, who has worked as a carer for patients with brain injuries, also now endures three sessions of dialysis every week after losing the kidney.
She said: ‘It’s all taken me to a very dark place and there are times when I can’t help thinking everyone would be better off without me. I’ve thought about walking in front of a lorry but I know that would hurt my family and they’re hurting enough.’
Mrs Hunt discovered her donor was a 56-year-old woman who died after medics were unable to stop a
‘I was terrified. I was in tears’ ‘It’s taken me to a very dark place’
blood clot reaching her brain. Her husband Gordon, 58, said: ‘What happened to Pauline and the liver transplant patient from Newcastle should never have occurred.
‘We need a proper inquiry to find out exactly what went wrong, not just for Pauline and the poor man who has already died, but for the thousands who are on the transplant waiting lists hoping to get the help that should save their lives, not kill them.’
Mr Hunt feels deeply let down by the specialists.
He said: ‘When they finally admitted the transplanted kidney had given Pauline cancer, the lead specialist sat on the edge of her bed with his head in his hands.
‘I asked him outright if they had put her on her deathbed and he said, “Yes”. Later on he denied saying Pauline had been failed.’
Despite what is stated on Mrs Hunt’s medical notes, the NHS- run national Blood and Transplant Service, which carries out more than 6,000 transplants a year, has not accepted responsibility. One document states the couple are ‘aware the transplant has introduced malignancy which has rapidly spread’.
Mrs Hunt and her husband insist they were advised only of the routine risks of surgery.
The couple have asked lawyer Cameron Fyfe to investigate.
He described the case as ‘one of the most deeply distressing’ he had ever dealt with.
A spokesman for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: ‘Transplantation carries known risks, including malignancy, and these are discussed at length at various stages in preparing the patient for transplantation.
‘Both the patient and her family were kept fully informed of this investigation and its outcome which found that the situation could not have been anticipated.’
John Forsythe, medical director for Organ Donation and Transplantation at NHS Blood and Transplant, said: ‘In very rare cases it is possible that the donor has a very small tumour which cannot be picked up by the tests.
‘This means the transmission of an undiagnosed cancer is a known risk, though thankfully very rare.’