NHS apologizes for lymphomas in transplant patients

"On behalf of NHSBT, I offer our sincere and unreserved apologies to the patients for the fact that each received a donated kidney that would have been rejected by their surgeon if he had been aware of the complete donor information."

This is part of the public apology offered by Lynda Hamlyn, chief executive of the NHS Blood and Transplant, after it came to light that two patients who received kidneys from the same deceased donor had developed the same subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, because the transplant team did not detect the cancer in the donor.

A 46 year old woman and a 59 year old man found out within a week or so of their kidney transplant procedure that the donor had intravascular B-cell lymphoma--and now, so did they.

Each patient required several rounds of combination chemotherapy. Each is currently considered cancer-free, but it is also something they will live with and worry about for the rest of their lives.

Source: UK Press Association