February 10, 2016 – Organ Transplant and HIV

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Anchor lead: A new source of donor organs for people with HIV has become available, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Organs from people who are HIV infected can now be transplanted into others who also have the virus, an initiative spearheaded by Dorry Segev and colleagues at Johns Hopkins has made possible.  Segev says the payoff is potentially huge.

Segev: HIV is actually one of the more common causes of kidney disease today and so there are actually thousands of patients with HIV who have kidney failure who could potentially become kidney recipients.  :13

Previously, perfectly transplantable organs from people who were HIV positive were simply not used, and that, Segev says, was a big waste of resources.

Segev: When we were writing the HOPE act, we were estimating that there are probably about three hundred to five hundred viable donors every year that are discarded because they’re HIV positive.  So we would expect on the order of a thousand or more organs to be available for transplant.  :19

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.