Cancerous Kidneys — Better than nothing?

Let’s say you need a kidney transplant.  None are available except one riddled with cancer.  What should you do?  It now seems that a wise choice may be to take the cancerous kidney and use it until a better one becomes available.

The following excerpts are from Michelle Roberts, ‘Risky donor’ kidney transplants prove successful, BBC News, Dec. 7, 2009: 

Surgeons say they have had success with a controversial transplant technique that uses risky donor kidneys containing cancerous masses.

So far five patients have been treated by the team at Baltimore’s University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The US surgeons say the technique offers a vital lifeline to patients with end-stage renal failure who could die waiting for a healthy donor organ.

None of the patients has yet developed cancer urology journal BJUI reports.