Hearts and Lungs from Hepatitis C Virus–Infected Donors Were Safely Transplanted into HCV-Negative Recipients

The opioid epidemic has produced a growing number of potentially transplantable organs from donors who had hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. At the same time, the use of direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) has decreased the pool of HCV-infected recipients. To avoid waste of these organs, the liver and kidney transplant community offered HCV-infected organs to HCV-negative recipients, curing and preventing infection with posttransplant DAAs (NEJM JW Infect Dis May 2018 and Ann Intern Med 2018; 168:533). Now, investigators report a single-center study of outcomes in heart and lung recipients.

Forty-four HCV seronegative recipients received organs (36 lung; 8 heart) from HCV-infected donors. Most (42/44) developed detectable posttransplant HCV vir…