Unexpected Effect Of Transplantation?

[ZedBloke]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-20762437
I know there is a shortage of organs for transplant but should they really be re using the lungs of a smoker?

[Sqad]

Hobson's Choice.

You need a lung and without one soon, you will die. One comes along and it is not perfect a perfect lung, but better than nothing.

You have not long to decide and this "smoker's lung" was a perfect match for you.

Would you take it?

I would.

[sunny-dave]

Tricky one - in this case the lungs appeared healthy at the point at which they were used.

The young woman concerned should have been given the option not to take those lungs - but my guess is that (without the benefit of 20/20 foresight) she would have been so desperate for a transplant that she would have taken the risk.

In her circumstances I certainly would.

[emmie]

quite honestly i don't know. Had the young woman been told she would have refused it according to her husband. It's ghastly whichever way you look at it.

[sunny-dave]

evening sqadlet - you type faster than me, but we basically agree :)

[LazyGun]

Seems odd on the surface, but this paragraph from the article sums it up really.

"The Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust said: "It is very rare for patients to specify that they do not wish to be considered for clinically healthy lungs from smokers.

"This is because the risks are much higher if patients decline donor lungs from a former smoker, and decide to wait for another set of organs which are both a match for them and from a non-smoker, to become available.

"However, we recognise that Jennifer should have been given the opportunity to make this choice."

If the donor organs are determined to be clinically sound, then the risk of waiting for another compatible donor outweigh the theoretical risk of developing cancer, it seems to me...

[emmie]

they couldn't have been that healthy if she died of lung cancer. The person was a 20 a day smoker.

[joko]

being a smoker doesnt always mean cancer though.

presumably many have had this happen to them and have gone on to live long and healthy lives.

the organs should certainly undergo deeper tests for disease, but i guess if its a toss up between risking a smokers lung or certain death then it has to be the lung id say.

very sad for her though.

[Sqad]

Good evening dave.

[emmie]

according to the news a few night ago, the biggest cause of death in adults is lung cancer, caused by smoking.

[Sqad]

\\\ biggest cause of death in adults is lung cancer, caused by smoking.\\

That report is totally inaccurate.

[237SJ]

Biggest cause of death has got to be heart disease, surely?

[emmie]

i was trying to post a link then the screen froze and crashed.

[Sqad]

237.....exactly.

Cancer is the second commonest cause of death......that is ALL cancers (including lung)

[LazyGun]

This is from the UK ONS, Em, for 2011.

"Figures released today show that mortality rates last year were the lowest ever recorded for England and Wales, at 6,236 deaths per million population for males and 4,458 deaths per million population for females.

Cancer accounted for 30% of them, with circulatory diseases, such as heart disease and strokes, the cause of 29%.

But cancer death rates have fallen by 14% for men and 10% for women in the previous decade.

And between 2001 and 2011, the death rates for circulatory diseases fell by 44% to 1,803 deaths per million population for males and 1,110 deaths per million population for females"

So death from all types of cancer is a close candidate for highest contributor to the mortality rate, hotly contested by cardiovascular problems.

Lung cancer would not be the highest single contributor to mortality, although it might the single largest contributor to death by cancer - an important distinction given the topic of conversation.

Smoking, of course, contributes a lot to the overall mortality rate, impacting as it does on cardiovascular, respiratory and cancer related deaths....

As far as this particular case goes - it would be preferable if prospective donors were non alcoholic non- smokers - but we do not, at this moment in time, have that luxury. There are far more recipients, some in a desperate state of health, than there are donors.

[emmie]

this wasn't the link i was looking at, can't find it now.

http://www.healthdaily.co.uk/health-matters/2012/11/08/cancer-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-uk

[emmie]

it doesn't matter as the poor lass is dead. Had she been given the information which i would have thought would have been a formality, she at least could have had the choice to accept the risks.

[LazyGun]

And that is right- cancer is running neck and neck with cardivascular diseases as the leading contributor to mortality in the UK - but that is all forms of cancer Em, not just lung cancer.

[emmie]

Lung cancer would not be the highest single contributor to mortality, although it might the single largest contributor to death by cancer

yes. it is what i didn't add, that the medical expert said that out of the many cancers, lung cancer is the one with the highest mortality rate.
There was quite a lot more, but as i said it's now a moot point.

[jno]

"she was dying somebody else's death"... that's a spooky line.

sunny-dave, how much ibuprofen would you recommend I take for this headache?

[pdq1]

Are they saying if the person donated the lungs they would have died within 2 years but died from other causes? I find that hard to believe. Wouldn't the tests show that he was already dying of lung cancer before the transplantation?