PHILADELPHIA – A lawsuit alleges that a man received a smoker's cancerous lungs in a transplant at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and died six months later.
Penn Health System spokeswoman Susan Phillips says the hospital had no way of knowing the lungs weren't healthy.
Tony Grier had been diagnosed in 1986 with pulmonary sarcoidosis, which can cause lung tissue to harden. He joined a transplant waiting list and received the donor lungs in 2005. The New Jersey man remained hospitalized at Penn from then until his July 16 death at age 43.
The suit filed by Grier's mother alleges that Penn told Grier he was getting the healthy lungs of an 18-year-old. The Penn spokeswoman says the hospital never gave Grier or his family any misinformation.
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