Surgeon ‘catches’ cancer from patient in first-of-its-kind case

Five months after performing surgery on a cancer patient, the surgeon contracted the same rare form of the disease.

The medical team involved with the bizarre case concluded that the doctor had accidentally 'transplanted' the disease into himself after suffering a cut on his hand while operating on a patient who was having a tumour removed from his abdomen.

Despite the surgeon's wound being disinfected and bandaged immediately, the surgeon noticed a small lump developing in the same spot as the injury several months on from the incident.

Professionals diagnosed the surgeon with a malignant tumour and tests showed it was genetically identical to the cancer suffered by his former patient, leading to the belief that the tumour cells from the patient had entered the cut on his hand.

The case was first reported in 1996, but has resurfaced with renewed interest in recent days. 

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, doctors wrote about the "accidental transplantation" of the patient's malignant fibrous histiocytoma - which is a rare type of cancer that forms in soft tissue with just 1,400 diagnoses per year - due to an "ineffective antitumour immune response" in the surgeon's body.

The authors of the report wrote: "Normally, transplantation of allogeneic tissue from one person to another induces an immune response that leads to the rejection of the transplanted tissue.

"In the case of the surgeon, an intense inflammatory reaction developed in the tissue surrounding the tumour, but the tumour mass increased, suggesting an ineffective antitumor immune response."

The authors believed that the tumour "escaped immunologic destruction through several mechanisms," included alteration to molecules in its cells, and a failure in the surgeon's body to recognise and attack tumour cells effectively.

Two years after the surgeon had his own tumour removed, there were no signs the cancer had spread or returned.

While the 32-year-old cancer patient's initial surgery was successful, he died following complications after the procedure. 

Cases like the surgeon's are extremely rare and there are currently no statistics on 'transplanted' cancer.