Surgeon 'catches' cancer after operating on patient in first-of-its-kind case
3 January 2025, 10:37 | Updated: 3 January 2025, 11:56
A surgeon has been diagnosed with cancer after operating on a 32-year-old man from Germany who was diagnosed with a rare form of the disease.
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The surgeon is thought to have 'caught' the cancer during surgery to remove the tumour from the patients abdomen.
While in surgery, the doctor cut his hand accidentally, with the wound cleaned and bandaged immediately by fellow medics.
However, five months later, the 53-year-old surgeon discovered a small lump at the incision site where he had injured himself and sought medical advice.
Professionals diagnosed the surgeon with a malignant tumour and tests showed it was genetically identical to the cancer suffered by his former patient.
The medical team concluded that he had caught the cancer when tumour cells entered the cut on his hand - in what is believed to be the first case of it's kind.
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Typically, in a traditional transplant, the body delivers an immune response and rejects any foreign tissue.
But due to the tumour's development, and growth, it suggests the surgeon's body had an "ineffective antitumour immune response."
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.
The doctor injured the palm of his left hand when trying to place a drain in his patient, as he was surgically removed the cancer from the patient's abdomen.
The wound was immediately disinfected and bandaged.
While the cancer patient's initial surgery was successful, he died following complications after the procedure.
After five months, there was a hard 1.2 inch swelling which looked like a tumour at the bottom of the doctor's left middle finger.
He went to see a hand specialist and had an "extensive" exam which included several laboratory and blood tests, although there were no abnormal discoveries.
The tumour was taken out and the mass was examined under a microscope, which revealed it was also a malignant fibrous histiocytoma.
The physician who had been treating both the cancer patient and the surgeon questioned whether the tumours were linked.
Samples of both tumours were further analyzed and were determined to be "identical".
They both had the same types of cells and arrangement of those cells.
The authors 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 thought 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.
Doctors were particularly interested by the case because transplanted tissue is different from host tissue and is typically targeted by the host's immune system in an attempt to destroy it.
This is why organ recipients must take immunosuppressive drugs to make sure their body does not reject the transplanted organ.
Cases like the surgeon's are extremely rare and there are no statistics on 'transplanted' cancer.
