Thaindian News

May 28, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): It might well be the only incident of its kind but is an unfortunate one. A man died of uterine cancer which is got after a kidney transplant from the donor woman who was unaware of her having it.

This incident that happened in 2002 has resurfaced after man’s widow alleged and sued the NYU Langone Medical Center for malpractice in her husband’s death. Vincent Liew was thirty seven at the time of his death and was told by his doctors that risk of him contracting the disease was minimal.

The NYU Langone Medical Center said that it had advised Liew of the risk involved. It said that no sign of cancer was found in the tests. Liew suffered back pain after the transplant and had to get his kidney removed after about six months. He died three weeks later of cancer that had spread in his body.

Liew, a diabetic since his teens worked in the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York. Reports say that he had been waiting for a kidney for about five years before he got the transplant in 2002. The donor Sandy Cabrera had died of a stroke about a day earlier and according to her boyfriend Michael Daniels, no one knew that she had cancer.

Liew’s widow Kimberly has demanded more than $ 3 million in damage in her lawsuit. She accused the hospital for the pain and suffering her husband had to go through after the transplant.