Donated organs cause cancer in 4 people in 'extraordinary' case

Four people in Europe developed breast cancer after receiving organs from the same donor in what is being described as an "extraordinary case" by doctors.

Three of the patients died from the cancer, which underscores the "often-fatal consequences of donor-derived breast cancer," researchers wrote in a study published in the American Journal of Transplantation.

According to the researchers from Netherlands and Germany, a 53-year-old organ donor died from a stroke in 2007.

She had no known medical conditions that would have precluded organ donation, and multiple tests showed no signs of cancer, 'Live Science' reported.

Doctors transplanted both kidneys, lungs, liver and heart into five separate donor recipients. The heart-transplant patient died of unrelated causes shortly after the transplant.

However, the three patients who received lung, liver and left kidney transplants succumbed to cancer over the span of next six years.

A DNA analysis of their cancer cells revealed that they had come from the organ donor.

A 32-year-old man who received the right kidney was also diagnosed with breast cancer cells in his transplanted kidney in 2011.

However, the doctors were able to remove the kidney, and he also underwent chemotherapy. The treatment was successful, and the man was cancer-free 10 years after the transplantation surgery.

Passing cancer through an organ transplant is "a very, very uncommon event," said Lewis Teperman, director of organ transplantation at Northwell Health in the US, who was not involved in the case.

Transplant recipients have a chance of between one in 10,000 and five in 10,000 of this happening, according to the report.

The report concludes that the low rate of cancer transmission from transplantation "implies that current practices of donor screening for malignancy are effective."