4 get cancer from teen's donated organs

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - Alex Koehne had a love for life, and always wanted to help people.

So when his parents were told that their 15-year-old son was dying of bacterial meningitis, the couple didn't hesitate in donating his organs to desperately ill transplant recipients.

"I immediately said, `Let's do it'," Jim Koehne recalled. "We both thought it was a great idea. This is who Alex was."

A year later, their dream that Alex's spirit might somehow live on has become a nightmare.

It turned out that Alex did not die of bacterial meningitis, but rather a rare form of lymphoma that wasn't found until his autopsy, and apparently spread to the organ recipients. The Long Island couple was told that two of the recipients have died, and two others had the donor kidneys removed and are getting cancer treatment.

The revelation has led two hospitals to revise transplant procedures, although the state Health Department found that no one was to blame. Experts say the possibility of getting cancer from an organ donor is extremely rare: Only 64 cases have been identified in a national study of 230,000 cases, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

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Eek.

This is so sad But I wonder....when they discovered he died of lymphoma during the autopsy why didn't they do anything about the recipients at that time?

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I'm famous in Vermont....

Good question Tally, i was wondering the same myself.

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"TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE"

only thing I can think of is that they didn't have any other organs available to replace the lymphoma ones with? *shrug*

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I'm famous in Vermont....

Or enough time to find it before the organs were rushed out?

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"TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE"