Man given smoker's lungs in bungled transplant

Photo / Brett Phibbs

LONDON - A British veteran of the war in Iraq has died after receiving cancerous lungs from a heavy smoker in a transplant, media reports say.

Matthew Millington, 31, a corporal in the Queens Royal Lancers, had the operation to save him from an incurable respiratory condition, The Times reported today.

But the organs were from a donor who was believed to have smoked 30 to 50 roll-up cigarettes a day.

A tumour was found after the transplant, and its growth was accelerated by the drugs Millington took to prevent his body rejecting the organs.

Under hospital rules, as a cancer patient he was not allowed to receive a further pair of lungs.

The soldier 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 in Cambridge, Britain's main heart and lung transplant centre, carried out the operation but said early X-rays on the organs to be transplanted did not find any signs of cancer, The Times reported.

An inquest was told last week that an internal investigation at Papworth pinpointed a string of problems and in Millington's case a radiographer had failed to highlight the growth of the cancerous tumour.

The hospital defended using smokers' lungs for transplants, saying that all organs were screened rigorously.

- AAP