Woman's kidney donation leads to early cancer diagnosis

[okarol]

Woman's kidney donation leads to early cancer diagnosis

Christy McGinnity donated her kidney to a stranger this summer thinking she'd save someone's life.

Within a few months, the Norfolk woman was fighting for her own. But McGinnity's decision to donate her kidney gave her a head start.

McGinnity, 39, developed an infection after the kidney transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in August. Follow-up testing revealed a dark spot on one of her lungs that had not shown up before.

She was later diagnosed with lung cancer at the Massey Cancer Center at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She'll have surgery at VCU Medical Center this month to remove the growth.

It's a grim diagnosis - more people die of lung cancer each year than any other cancer - but the fact that it was detected this early is as unusual as it is fortunate.

"This would not have been picked up if she had not gone to Johns Hopkins for the kidney transplant," said Dr. Hans Lee, a pulmonologist at VCU Massey Cancer Center.

Lee said lung cancer symptoms - persistent cough, chest pain and spitting up blood - don't usually show up until the late stages of the disease, when it has spread too far to cure. He said most people who are diagnosed this early are those, like McGinnity, receiving scans to treat something unrelated.

McGinnity had seen an article in the newspaper last year about a woman who needed a kidney, so she volunteered one of hers. She was not a match for that woman, but Johns Hopkins' transplant officials asked whether she'd like to be paired with someone else.

She agreed and popped up as a good match earlier this year for Regina Davis, a 49-year-old diabetic from Maryland's Eastern Shore. Davis had been on dialysis, a blood-cleansing procedure, since 2008 because her kidneys had failed. McGinnity donated a kidney to Davis, and Davis' daughter agreed to donate a kidney to someone in St. Louis. These "paired kidney exchanges," in which someone donates a kidney on a patient's behalf so the patient can receive a compatible organ from someone else in return, are growing across the country.

A post-operative infection, though, led McGinnity to more medical testing at Johns Hopkins in September, which eventually resulted in a diagnosis of bronchioloalveolar carcinoma, a form of lung cancer.

Lee said McGinnity's prognosis is much improved because the cancer was caught so early. Further tests are needed to determine exactly what stage her cancer is, but he said her lung capacity is still very good, so he believes it's an early stage.

He said it's unlikely it has had a chance to spread past the lung, so the kidney she donated probably was not affected. A spokeswoman from Johns Hopkins said that transplant surgeons there agree the risk of transmitting the disease would be very low, and that the recipient is being closely monitored.

McGinnity is learning more about health care in America than she bargained for. She was uninsured, but her diagnosis and income level qualified her for Medicaid, the state-federal insurance for low-income families and the disabled.

She sought treatment at VCU Health System because she once worked there as a patient care technician.

Davis, meanwhile, has returned to her home on Maryland's Eastern Shore and no longer needs to be on dialysis. She said that her new kidney is working well, but that she is still recovering from an infection she developed after the surgery. Her daughter, Tiffany Robinson, has healed from her transplant surgery and returned to California, where she is stationed with a Navy construction battalion.

McGinnity had thought the surgery she volunteered for in August would be her big medical experience of the year. But it pales in comparison to what she faces now. The single mother of a 7-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son is worried about paying her expenses, such as co-payments and travel to Richmond.

Still, she feels fortunate to have an early diagnosis.

"I wouldn't have found out about it if I hadn't given the kidney," she said. "It was worth it, and I'd do it again."

Elizabeth Simpson, (757) 446-2635, elizabeth.simpson@pilotonline.com
Source URL (retrieved on 12/04/2010 - 00:15): http://hamptonroads.com/2010/12/womans-kidney-donation-leads-early-cancer-diagnosis