Hepatitis C-infected Organs Safe for Transplantation When Followed by Antiviral Treatment

Hepatitis C-infected Organs Safe for Transplantation When Followed by Antiviral Treatment

Penn Medicine launched an innovative clinical trial in 2016 to test the effect of transplanting kidneys from donors with Hepatitis C virus (HCV) into patients currently on the kidney waitlist who do not have the virus and would opt in to receive these otherwise unused organs. After transplantation, recipients were treated with an antiviral therapy in an effort to cure the virus. To date, 20 patients have been cured of HCV are report good quality of life. Their transplanted kidneys are functioning as well as kidneys transplanted from similar donors without HCV.

 

The study results are good news, particularly for patients who are facing tremendous wait times and who spend much of their daily lives on dialysis. “While larger, longer term studies are important to confirm these results, we can confidently say that hospitals nation-wide could perform hundreds or thousands more transplants if we increased our acceptance of organs from donors with hepatitis C,” said Peter Reese, MD, MSCE, an associate professor of Medicine and Epidemiology and co-leader of the research team.

 

Click here to read the news release published by Penn Medicine News on August 6, 2018.

 

 

 

 

 

Marianne Ryan
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