Malpractice Suit Filed After Hospital Transplants Cancerous Lungs to New Patient

As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer last month, an ongoing case in federal court in Newark, New Jersey highlights the hidden dangers of organ transplants in the United States.  In 2005, Tony Grier, 43, was dying from a rare lung disease when he received two donor lungs from a 31 year old woman who died in a car accident.  Grier died six months later after it was discovered that the transplanted lungs had lung cancer.  Lawyers for Mr. Grier's estate contend the hospital should have known the lungs were cancerous because the donor had smoked for 16 years.  Defendants in the suit are the University of Pennsylvania Health System, the hospital and surgeons who performed the transplant and evaluated the lungs, and Lancaster General Hospital, where they were harvested.  The suit alleges that the defendants failed to perform necessary tests that would have detected cancer, and also failed to find it after the transplant.   According to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), a national nonprofit that was established by Congress in 1984 to administer the nation's transplantation network, lung cancer in a transplanted organ is very rare.  Data from the UNOS shows that cancer, of any kind, was transmitted to 47 organ recipients between 1994 and 2006.  Lung transplant recipients accounted for eight of those cases.

If you or a loved one believe you have been the victim of hospital negligence in the course of an organ transplant, contact the lawyers at STSW for a free consultation.