An Iraq war veteran died after receiving cancerous lungs from a heavy smoker in a transplant.
Matthew Millington, 31, a corporal in the Queen’s Royal Lancers, had the operation to save him from an incurable respiratory condition.
But the organs were from a donor who was believed to have smoked 30 to 50 roll-up cigarettes a day. A tumor was found after the transplant, and its growth was accelerated by the drugs that Mr Millington took to prevent his body rejecting the organs.
Because he was a cancer patient, he was not allowed to receive a further pair of lungs, under hospital rules. The soldier had radiotherapy but died at home in Stoke-on-Trent in February last year.
His widow, Siobhan, said: “All Matthew wanted was another set of lungs. He said: ‘They have given me a dud pair, get me another set’. He thought he could beat it, but his condition deteriorated so fast from then.”
Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, the country’s main heart and lung transplant center, carried out the operation. It said that early X-rays on the organs did not find any signs of cancer.
Mr Millington had learned that he had a serious lung condition in 2006 and was given two years to live unless he had a transplant.
A donor was found and the double lung transplant went ahead in April 2007. The cancer was discovered only six months after the operation, because of a lack of communication between radiographers and consultants. The tumor had grown from 9mm to 13mm in that period.
An inquest was told last week that an internal investigation at Papworth pinpointed a string of problems, including difficulties with communication, record-keeping and patient handover.
In Mr Millington’s case a radiographer had failed to highlight the growth of the cancerous tumor.
Discounting verdicts of neglect or misadventure, Ian Smith, the North Staffordshire Coroner, delivered a narrative verdict, recording that Mr Millington had died from “complications of transplant surgery”.
The hospital defended using smokers’ lungs for transplants, saying that all organs were screened rigorously.
Speaking after the inquest, Mr Millington’s father Lester, 61, said: “I have never contemplated further action. I wanted to get to the inquest but I was 99.9 per cent certain that nothing they did wrong was done wrong wilfully. It is a fact that 51 per cent of all lungs transplanted at Papworth come from donors who smoked.
“Without using such lungs many more people would die without receiving a transplant.”
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