A rare case of cancer transmission from a patient to a doctor has been reported, raising questions about the body’s immune response to transplanted tissue. A 32-year-old man from Germany was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer and underwent surgery to remove a tumor from his abdomen. During the procedure, the surgeon accidentally cut her hand but the wound was immediately disinfected and bandaged.
Five months later, the surgeon developed a small lump on his left middle finger, which turned out to be a malignant tumor identical to the cancer suffered by his former patient. The medical team who treated him concluded that he had caught the cancer when tumor cells entered the cut on his hand.
The case is unusual because in traditional transplants, the body mounts an immune response and rejects foreign tissue. However, in this case, the surgeon’s body did not mount a typical response to the tumor cells, allowing them to grow and develop into a new cancer.
The authors of the case report suggest that the surgeon’s body may have had an ineffective antitumor immune response, which allowed the tumor to escape immunologic destruction. The case highlights the complexity of the human immune system and the need for further research on this rare phenomenon.
This case is one of only a few reported cases of cancer transmission from donor to recipient, and there is currently limited data available on the subject. However, researchers believe that the true incidence may be higher than previously thought, and further studies are needed to fully understand this rare phenomenon.
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-14244253/Surgeon-catches-cancer-patient-rare-case.html