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Hong Kong hit with second medical blunder in a week as organ donor posthumously found to have cancer
Stroke victim's heart, lungs transplanted before malignant mass found on kidney is diagnosed
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Another public hospital has been hit by a serious medical blunder, with two patients receiving organ transplants from a stroke victim who was posthumously found to have had cancer.
After the organ donor died in Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin on Tuesday, the family gave their consent to donate his kidneys, liver, heart and lungs, a Hospital Authority spokesman said yesterday.
The organs were deemed suitable for donation after a series of examinations according to the established protocol for such patients, the spokesman said.
Read more: Doctors at Hong Kong hospital removed a quarter of man's lung by mistake thinking he had lung cancer
The blunder follows the revelation on Wednesday that doctors at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan removed part of a patient's lung, on the mistaken belief he had lung cancer.
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In the latest incident, the organ harvesting operations began at 9am on Wednesday, when doctors from Queen Mary Hospital in Pokfulam removed the stroke victim's heart, lungs and liver, in accordance with established organ transplant procedures.
At 2.55pm, Prince of Wales doctors harvesting the kidneys found a mass with a diameter of 1.5 centimetres on the posterior surface of the right kidney.
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The specimen was sent for an urgent frozen section examination, and the results at 3.30pm showed it was renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer.
Read more: Compensation in the pipeline for Hongkonger who lost part of lung in serious blunder
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