CF patient dies after being given lungs of 30-year smoker

THE British Government’s “transplant tsar” insisted yesterday that organ transplants were carried out on the basis of whether they would work – after it emerged a cystic fibrosis sufferer died after receiving the lungs of a long-term smoker.

Chris Rudge, national clinical director for transplantation, said smoking was not the “issue” in the case of cystic fibrosis sufferer Lyndsey Scott, whose family have lodged a complaint after she received a double lung transplant from a 30-year smoker.

The 28-year-old, from Wigan, underwent the double transplant at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester in January last year and died in the July from pneumonia.

Her family have said they were not told that the donor smoked – and she would have been “horrified” to discover the organs were from a smoker of 30 years.

Rudge, who said he did not know the “full details” of the case, and was speaking more generally, insisted that it mattered “far more” if lungs were working properly than if they were from a smoker.

“Surgeons have to make decisions – about four out of every five lungs that become available for transplantation are not used because they are not working well enough.

“It is nothing to do with the history of the donor, it is whether the organ is working or not, whether it is going to produce a successful transplant or not, and, in this particular case, smoking isn’t the issue.”

He told BBC Breakfast that people who go on the waiting list for transplants must be told that human organs that become available are not “brand new”, perfect organs.

He added that surgeons and the patient should also discuss and come to a consensus if a particular organ carries particular risks, but that surgeons were working within tight time constraints.

Scott is said to have undergone the transplant surgery to prolong her life after her condition deteriorated. Her family were reported to have found out that the lungs came from a long-term smoker after applying for the medical notes on the operation.

“I can honestly say she would have been horrified to have known those lungs were from a smoker and quite definitely she would have refused that operation,” Allan Scott, her father, told the BBC.

A spokeswoman for the University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust said it had followed national guidelines. A statement from the trust said it would not be able to comment while the trust responds to an official complaint made by the family.