London - A surgeon who transplanted infected kidneys from a homeless alcoholic into two patients was accused of being a liar on Wednesday.
Consultant Argiris Asderakis chose to use the donated organs despite knowing they had already been rejected by a string of other hospitals across Britain.
The kidneys, which contained a deadly rare parasitic worm, were given to Darren Hughes and Robert Stuart, both of whom later died.
At the inquest into their deaths, Asderakis said he had warned the two men there was a small risk of a brain infection being passed on because the donor had died from meningitis, although the cause was unknown.
Appearing to strongly reject this claim at the hearing, the families of both men shook their heads while Stuart’s wife Judith silently mouthed the word: “Liar.”
Asderakis later turned to the grieving relatives and told them: “I am terribly sorry for the loss of both families. I wish I could turn the clock back.”
The surgeon said there was “always a risk” with transplants when the donor’s precise cause of death is unknown.
Hughes, a 42-year-old father-of-six, and grandfather Stuart, 67, were not told of the 39-year-old donor’s lifestyle before they were operated on at the Labour-run Welsh NHS hospital.
On Wednesday Asderakis, 51, admitted he took a calculated risk in accepting the kidneys after they had been rejected by a string of centres across Britain. Asderakis told their inquest he could not have known the kidneys were infected with the worm - known as halicephalobus - and led to the first recorded human to human transmission in history. He believed there was a low risk the meningitis which killed the donor could be transmitted to Hughes and Stuart.
He said: “I cannot say what I felt when I discovered there was an infection.
“Not just me, but the whole unit are distraught about that, and we are trying to learn lessons. Nobody could have predicted it.”
The inquest heard Hughes and Stuart died within three weeks of being given the infected kidneys. Post mortem examinations of both men found an infestation of the worm - which lives in soil - in their brains.
Asderakis, a transplant surgeon for 14 years at University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff, said not knowing the exact cause of death of a transplant donor was “not uncommon”.
He explained: “The decision to transplant is always a risk. It is never clear cut.”
He said transplant operations using high-risk organs occur every day, adding: “If you exclude all high-risk donors then we will stop 11 percent of donors in this country. That is 1 500 transplants.”
Hughes and Stuart were both on the donor waiting list. They were telephoned in the early hours of November 30 last year and told they had found a “good match” and would receive a transplant.
But the kidneys from the donor in the Manchester area - who was known to have slept rough and drank 11 times the weekly recommended alcohol level - had been rejected by hospitals from Edinburgh to Birmingham.
The parasitic worm lays eggs in the liver and kidneys and then travels to the brain where it stops the blood supply and causes bleeding.
The inquest in Cardiff has been adjourned until next month.
Daily Mail