Organ recipient Vincent Liew died seven months after his kidney transplant at NYU Medical Center in 2002 from uterine cancer—a disease only women get. It turns out that NYU had transplanted a cancerous kidney into Liew's body, and now his widow is suing the doctors responsible. Kimberly Liew's lawyer says the kidney was "covered in tumors" when it was put Vincent's body, but doctors didn't learn that it had come from a cancerous donor until two months after the transplant.
Even then, Liew claims they never told them about the kidney's previous owner, but instead "made up a lot of excuses. They told us the kidney is not adapting to his body. They didn't tell me he had cancer." Now, the United Network for Organ Sharing admits it doesn't have time to check every organ for disease.
UNOS has a policy of not taking organs from people with diseases like cancer or HIV, but one UNOS spokeswoman said there is usually not much time to double check. She said, "When somebody dies, time is of the essence, and you have to transplant while the organ is still viable." A 2008 study of 230,000 transplants by the UNOS showed just 64 of them, less than 1%, had passed cancer from the donor to the recipient.
NYU doctors mentioned this statistic to the Liews, saying that since the donor had uterine cancer, there was very little chance Vincent could contract the disease. But his autopsy in September 2002 showed that he did die of uterine cancer, which was also found in his donated kidney. Kimberly Liew's suit against the doctors who transplanted the kidney is going to trial today in the Queens Supreme Court.
