An inquest has heard how a soldier with lung disease died after being given the cancerous lungs of a heavy smoker in a transplant operation.

The Daily Mail reports that Iraq war veteran Matthew Millington, 31 – a corporal in the Queen’s Royal Lancers – had an incurable lung condition that necessitated an organ transplant to save his life.

The transplant was carried out in April 2007 at Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. However the donated lungs came from a donor who smoked between 30 and 50 roll-up cigarettes a day – and X-rays of the organs carried out before transplant missed a tumour that was not detected until six months after the transplant operation. Drugs that Mr Millington was given to help his body accept his new lungs also helped to speed up the development of the cancer, the inquest was told.

Mr Millington, who came from Stoke-on-Trent, was given radiotherapy but died in February 2008.

North Staffordshire Coroner Ian Smith recorded the verdict that Mr Millington had died from ‘complications of transplant surgery’.

Papworth Hospital has defended its use of lungs from smokers in transplant operations, saying that all organs for transplant are ‘screened rigorously’.

Mr Millington joined the army on his sixteenth birthday, but developed breathing difficulties in 2005. He was diagnosed with a serious lung condition in 2006 that required a transplant operation within two years to save him.

His widow Siobhan said:

‘All he wanted was another set of lungs. He said, “They’ve given me a dud pair.”’

© 5r1 Limited 2009