In 2003 Mackie and her colleagues reported on two cases where both patients had received a kidney from another patient and both developed secondary melanoma. Neither had primary melanoma. The two received kidneys from the same patient who was assumed to have died of subarachnoid hemorrhage although with no autopsy.

Mackie & Reid

"No patient with invasive melanoma should ever be an organ donor."

The patient was found to have been registered with the Scottish Melanoma Group after the removal of a 2.6-mm-thick primary melanoma in 1982. No secondaries had been found and the donor patient went home to live for a further 15 years, donating her kidneys in 1998.

Of those who received the donated kidneys, one patient died, while the other, after extensive treatment, lived. The authors’ conclusion was that people who had ever had melanoma should not become organ donors.