A physician who served as coordinator for the Japan Organ Transplant Network, the organization responsible for coordinating the nation's organ transplants, may have used his influence to obtain organs for one of his patients, sources close to the case told Kyodo News.

According to the sources, in January, Satoshi Teraoka, a member of the executive board of the Tokyo-based network and a professor at Tokyo Women's Medical University, verified the diagnosis that an organ donor was brain-dead with the JOTN.

He learned his patient might be chosen as one of the recipients of the donor's organs, the sources said Friday, and immediately began preparations to perform the transplant operation at his hospital.

Members of the JOTN's central evaluation committee said Teraoka's actions may have undermined the JOTN's fairness and neutrality, as he was in charge of coordinating arrangements and in a position to obtain information on both the donor and the recipient.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has begun an investigation into the case and is questioning JOTN officials.

Teraoka said there was no favoritism in selecting the recipient as he was not involved in the selection process, but he admitted his role in the matter could invite questions.

He said he asked a professor at Osaka University to replace him at the JOTN after learning that his patient might be chosen as an organ recipient, and said this measure took place with the consent of the chief of the coordination headquarters at the JOTN and the health ministry.

A spokesman for the ministry said it did not give its consent and that Teraoka never requested approval for his actions.

According to the sources, Teraoka on Jan. 19 verified the legal donor status of a woman in her 50s who had been diagnosed as clinically dead at a hospital in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture.

He also verified the suitability of donated organs at the JOTN headquarters in Tokyo's Minato Ward with other JOTN members and learned that one of his patients might be chosen to receive one or more of the woman's organs. He then resigned his position with the JOTN.

Once his patient had been selected to receive the organs, he returned to the university hospital on Jan. 20 to organize a transplant team, then traveled to the Kawasaki hospital to remove the pancreas and kidneys from the donor.

He then transplanted the organs into his patient, a woman in her 30s, at Tokyo Women's Medical University, the sources said.