A lawyer told a New York jury on Tuesday that doctors would have saved a man's life if they had removed his transplanted kidney when they learned the donor had cancer.

The New York Post has reported that James McCarthy, representing the recipient's widow, said Victor Liew was in a bind because the anti-rejection drugs he was taking also kept his body from fighting cancer. Liew was 37 when he died of uterine cancer in 2002 seven months after the transplant.

Dr. Thomas Diflo of New York University Medical Center learned two months after the transplant the kidney had come from a woman who had died of cancer, McCarthy, in his opening statement, said. McCarthy also added that removing the kidney at that point would probably have saved Liew's life.

McCarthy said, "He told Victor and Kimberly, don't worry about it, leave it in. Dr. Diflo told Vincent and Kimberly, don't worry, it's a female disease. Ninety-nine percent of the time you don't get it."

It was further reported that Diflo testified he did advise Liew to have the kidney removed, and the patient, who had been waiting five years for a transplant, refused. (With Inputs from Agencies)