Health Law

Patient Recieves a Cancerous Lung in Transplant

This from the Daily Pennsylvanian.  This lawsuit alleges that the hospital and doctors misrepresented the identity of the donor.

Two years ago, Tony Grier received a pair of diseased lungs during a lung transplant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Now, HUP must respond to questions raised in a lawsuit filed by Grier's estate.

Grier, 43, had pulmonary sarcoidosis - a rare disease that in its chronic form thickens lung tissue to the point at which it can no longer transmit oxygen into the bloodstream - and believed he was exchanging his own lungs for those of a healthy 18-year-old.

Instead, Grier received the cancerous lungs of a 31-year-old smoker. He died six months after the operation.

Last October, his mother, Emma Grier, filed a lawsuit against HUP, four of its physicians and Gift of Life - the organ-donor program through which the lungs were allocated to Tony Grier. She is suing each defendant for $750,000 on seven counts, including medical malpractice, wrongful death and common law fraud.

Source:  DailyPennsylvanian

Full post as published by Cerebral Palsy Law Blog on February 22, 2008 (boomark / email).