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'No failure' when parasitic worm kidneys were transplanted

A surgeon made 'no failures' when he decided to use two kidneys which were infected with a parasitic worm in organ transplants for two men, a Coroner has said.

Cardiff Coroner's Court heard the organs implanted in Darren Hughes and Robert 'Jim' Stuart had been rejected by several other hospitals before they were eventually used.

The two men died shortly after their operations, with a post-mortem pointing to an infection caused by the parasitic worm Halicephalobus.

Although doctors at the time had no idea the rare parasite was present, before these cases it had only been recorded in five humans.

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Parasitic worm 'never before transferred between humans'

Halicephalobus, the deadly parasitic worm that is thought to have caused the death of two kidney transplant patients, has never been transferred between humans before, an inquest heard today.

Darren Hughes and Robert 'Jim' Stuart died from infections caused by a parasitic worm, a post mortem found.

The worm lives in soil, manure and compost and there have been only five known cases in humans - all of which were fatal - with another 30 to 40 cases in horses.

Once the worm is inside a host's body, it can multiply and invade tissues such as the brain, causing major swelling.

The cases involving Darren Hughes and Robert Stuart and their unidentified kidney donor are the first known occurrences in the UK.

If Hughes and Stuart's deaths were transferred by the donor's organ, they would be the first human-to-human cases ever known, Cardiff Coroner's Court was told.

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