Doctor 'catches' cancer from patient while he was performing surgery in unbelievably rare case
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Images
It's common knowledge that cancer isn't contagious - you can't 'catch' cancer by spending time with someone who has the disease - but there are reports revealing how tumors have passed between people in the past.
In 1996, the New England Journal of Medicine detailed a case study involving a 32-year-old man who had cancer, and the 53-year-old surgeon assigned to help him.
The younger man had been diagnosed with malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH); a rare, aggressive cancer which, according to the National Cancer Institute, usually forms in soft tissue but can also form in bone.
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The cancer can occur anywhere in the body and the tumors often grow quickly, spreading to other parts of the body.
In this particular case, the patient had a tumor in his abdomen which the surgeon sought to remove.
Sadly, the patient died shortly after the operation due to post-operative complications, but it wasn't until a few months later that the surgeon realized how the operation had affected him personally.
During the procedure, the surgeon injured the palm of his left hand while trying to place a drain. The wound was immediately disinfected and dressed, but in the months after the surgery the doctor noticed a hard, tumor-like swelling in his left palm.
Five months after the procedure, the surgeon consulted a hand specialist for the swelling, which was 1.2 inches in diameter and located at the base of his middle finger - the same place he'd been injured during the operation.
Tests found that the surgeon did not have any signs of immune deficiency and the tumor was successfully removed from his hand. When it was tested, it was found that the tumor was a malignant fibrous histiocytoma - the same kind of cancer the patient had.
A pathologist working on the case questioned whether the tumors were identical, prompting analysis of tissues from both the surgeon and the patient.
The results revealed the tumors were morphologically identical.
The authors of the paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that 'there are several clinical examples of the accidental transplantation of a malignant tumor or tumor cells into a healthy recipient', however they pointed out that such transplantation usually induces an immune response which leads to the rejection of the transplanted tissue.
In this case, the authors believe the surgeon had an 'ineffective antitumor immune response'.
Thankfully, however, the removal of the tumor seemed to work, and two years later the surgeon's condition was good, with no evidence of a recurrence of the tumor.