Johns Hopkins Medicine has performed the nation’s first liver and kidney transplants from donors infected with HIV to recipients also infected with the virus, a landmark that doctors hope will pave the way for many more to get the life-saving surgery.
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Thousands of HIV patients included now on transplant waiting lists, unfortunately they ‘ are likely to die while waiting.
Segev, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, played a key role in lobbying Congress to change the longstanding ban on the use of HIV-infected organs in transplantation.
At the same time, “we were throwing away organs from donors infected with HIV just because they were infected”.
“At that time, in the 1980s, this made sense”, Segev says, “because HIV/AIDS was deadly disease”.
HIV treatment has advanced since the 80s, and medical teams set out to change the laws. The kidney recipient is home already, and doctors expect to discharge the person who received the liver transplant in a few days. That’s because scientists don’t know yes if it’s safe for a patient with HIV to donate a kidney. If their organs could be used for transplant, experts at Johns Hopkins think that more than 1,000 people could be saved. But for years before the ban was overturned there was growing consensus in the medical field that infected organs should be considered immediately because the alternative could be death.
People with HIV live longer today thanks to antiretroviral drugs and other therapies.
“This should open up transplantation to a significant segment of the population that has had a hard time getting transplants”, he said. “Organs that would have been perfectly suit”, indicated the surgeon who led the transplant team, Dr. Dorry Segev.
Doctors in South Africa have reported successfully transplanting HIV-positive kidneys but Hopkins said the HIV-positive liver transplant is the first worldwide.
While Johns Hopkins was the first to carry out the procedure, Segev said dozens of hospitals in the United States have enough experience with negative-to-positive transplants to learn the intricacies of doing positive-to-positive surgeries.
“It all came together”, Segev says. He believes that hundreds of HIV patients will be benefiting from it.
Currently, only one in four people get a donated organ.
In a statement provided to CNN News, “There is new hope for potential transplant recipients living with HIV”.
“This is an advancement that will affect everyone on the donor waiting list, including those with HIV”, Durand said.
“This is a very exciting day for us… but it is really only the beginning”, Dr Segev said. Under this act, the transplant involves HIV donor and HIV recipient only.
Approximately 122,000 people are on the United States transplant waiting list at any one time.
“Our waiting lists are off the charts”, he adds.
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‘And that, in turn, would help save and improve lives and strengthen the national supply of organs for all who need them’.
